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diff --git a/31511-h/31511-h.htm b/31511-h/31511-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa7bc1b --- /dev/null +++ b/31511-h/31511-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20422 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, by Wallace Notestein. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 15%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + color: #BDBDBD; +} + +hr.front { + width: 15%; + margin-top: 4em; + margin-bottom: 4em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + color: #BDBDBD; +} + +hr.foot { + width: 10%; + text-align: left; + margin-left: 0em; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em; + color: #BDBDBD; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 95%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: #C0C0C0; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center;} + +.block {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 30%;} + +.poem { + margin: 1em; + text-align: left; + font-size: 96% +} + +.poem span.i0 {margin-left: 0em;} + +.poem span.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + +.poem span.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + +.i3 {margin-left: 3em;} + +h2.chapter {font-size: 145%; padding-bottom: 0.75em;} + +h2.chapter3 {font-size: 165%; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-top: 1em;} + +h3.chapter2 {font-size: 125%; font-variant: small-caps; padding-bottom: 1em;} + +table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; font-size: 1em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 87%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.minispace {margin-bottom: 1em;} + +.microspace {margin-bottom: .5em;} + +.nanospace {padding-bottom: .25em;} + +.blockquote {margin-left: 3em; font-size: 95%; padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .5em;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +ins {text-decoration: none;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Witchcraft in England from +1558 to 1718, by Wallace Notestein + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 + +Author: Wallace Notestein + +Release Date: March 5, 2010 [EBook #31511] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCHCRAFT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Meredith Bach, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h2>PRIZE ESSAYS<br /> +<small>OF THE</small><br /> +AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION</h2> + +<hr style="width: 5%; margin-bottom: -.5em;" /> +<h2>1909</h2> + +<hr class="front" /> + +<h3>To this Essay was awarded the<br /> +<span class="smcap">Herbert Baxter Adams Prize<br /> +in European History</span><br /> +for 1909</h3> + + + +<hr class="front" /> +<h1>A HISTORY<br /> +<small>OF</small><br /> +WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND<br /> +<small>FROM 1558 TO 1718</small></h1> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3><small>BY</small><br /> +WALLACE NOTESTEIN<br /> +<small>ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA</small></h3> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h3><small>PUBLISHED BY</small><br /> +THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION<br /> +<small><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, 1911</small></h3> + + + +<hr class="front" /> +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1911<br /> +By The American Historical Association<br /> +Washington, D.C.</span></h4> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<hr style="width: 22%; margin-bottom: -.5em;" /> +<h4>THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS<br /> +BALTIMORE, M.D., U.S.A.</h4> + + + +<hr class="front" /> + +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>In its original form this essay was the dissertation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span> +submitted for a doctorate in philosophy conferred by +Yale University in 1908. When first projected it was the +writer's purpose to take up the subject of English +witchcraft under certain general political and social +aspects. It was not long, however, before he began to +feel that preliminary to such a treatment there was +necessary a chronological survey of the witch trials. +Those strange and tragic affairs were so closely involved +with the politics, literature, and life of the +seventeenth century that one is surprised to find how +few of them have received accurate or complete record +in history. It may be said, in fact, that few subjects have +gathered about themselves so large concretions of misinformation +as English witchcraft. This is largely, of +course, because so little attention has been given to it +by serious students of history. The mistakes and misunderstandings +of contemporary writers and of the +local historians have been handed down from county +history to county history until many of them have crept +into general works. For this reason it was determined +to attempt a chronological treatment which would +give a narrative history of the more significant trials +along with some account of the progress of opinion. +This plan has been adhered to somewhat strictly, sometimes +not without regret upon the part of the writer. It +is his hope later in a series of articles to deal with some +of the more general phases of the subject, with such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> +topics as the use of torture, the part of the physicians, +the contagious nature of the witch alarms, the relation +of Puritanism to persecution, the supposed influence of +the Royal Society, the general causes for the gradual +decline of the belief, and other like questions. It will +be seen in the course of the narrative that some of these +matters have been touched upon.</p> + +<p>This study of witchcraft has been limited to a period +of about one hundred and sixty years in English history. +The year 1558 has been chosen as the starting +point because almost immediately after the accession of +Elizabeth there began the movement for a new law, a +movement which resulted in the statute of 1563. With +that statute the history of the persecution of witches +gathers importance. The year 1718 has been selected +as a concluding date because that year was marked by +the publication of Francis Hutchinson's notable attack +upon the belief. Hutchinson levelled a final and deadly +blow at the dying superstition. Few men of intelligence +dared after that avow any belief in the reality of witchcraft; +it is probable that very few even secretly cherished +such a belief. A complete history would of course +include a full account both of the witch trials from Anglo-Saxon +times to Elizabeth's accession and of the +various witch-swimming incidents of the eighteenth +century. The latter it has not seemed worth while here +to consider. The former would involve an examination +of all English sources from the earliest times and would +mean a study of isolated and unrelated trials occurring +at long intervals (at least, we have record only of such) +and chiefly in church courts. The writer has not undertaken +to treat this earlier period; he must confess to +but small knowledge of it. In the few pages which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> +has given to it he has attempted nothing more than to +sketch from the most obvious sources an outline of +what is currently known as to English witches and +witchcraft prior to the days of Elizabeth. It is to be +hoped that some student of medieval society will at +some time make a thorough investigation of the history +of witchcraft in England to the accession of the great +Queen.</p> + +<p>For the study of the period to be covered in this +monograph there exists a wealth of material. It would +perhaps not be too much to say that everything in print +and manuscript in England during the last half of the +sixteenth and the entire seventeenth century should be +read or at least glanced over. The writer has limited +himself to certain kinds of material from which he could +reasonably expect to glean information. These sources +fall into seven principal categories. Most important of +all are the pamphlets, or chapbooks, dealing with the +history of particular alarms and trials and usually concluding +with the details of confession and execution. +Second only to them in importance are the local or +municipal records, usually court files, but sometimes +merely expense accounts. In the memoirs and diaries can +be found many mentions of trials witnessed by the diarist +or described to him. The newspapers of the time, in +their eagerness to exploit the unusual, seize gloatingly +upon the stories of witchcraft. The works of local +historians and antiquarians record in their lists of +striking and extraordinary events within their counties +or boroughs the several trials and hangings for the +crime. The writers, mainly theologians, who discuss +the theory and doctrine of witchcraft illustrate the principles +they lay down by cases that have fallen under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +their observation. Lastly, the state papers contain occasional +references to the activities of the Devil and of +his agents in the realm.</p> + +<p>Besides these seven types of material there should +be named a few others less important. From the pamphlet +accounts of the criminal dockets at the Old Bailey +and Newgate, leaflets which were published at frequent +intervals after the Restoration, are to be gleaned mentions +of perhaps half a dozen trials for witchcraft. The +plays of Dekker, Heywood, and Shadwell must be used +by the student, not because they add information +omitted elsewhere, but because they offer some clue to +the way in which the witches at Edmonton and Lancaster +were regarded by the public. If the pamphlet +narrative of the witch of Edmonton had been lost, it +might be possible to reconstruct from the play of Dekker, +Ford, and Rowley some of the outlines of the story. +It would be at best a hazardous undertaking. To reconstruct +the trials at Lancaster from the plays of Heywood +and Brome or from that of Shadwell would be +quite impossible. The ballads present a form of evidence +much like that of the plays. Like the plays, they +happen all to deal with cases about which we are +already well informed. In general, they seem to follow +the narratives and depositions faithfully.</p> + +<p>No mention has been made of manuscript sources. +Those used by the author have all belonged to one or +other of the types of material described.</p> + +<p>It has been remarked that there is current a large +body of misinformation about English witchcraft. +It would be ungrateful of the author not to acknowledge +that some very good work has been done on the +theme. The Reverend Francis Hutchinson, as already<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> +mentioned, wrote in 1718 an epoch-making history of +the subject, a book which is still useful and can never be +wholly displaced. In 1851 Thomas Wright brought out +his <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i>, a work at once +entertaining and learned. Wright wrote largely from +original sources and wrote with a good deal of care. +Such blunders as he made were the result of haste +and of the want of those materials which we now +possess. Mrs. Lynn Linton's <i>Witch Stories</i>, published +first in 1861, is a better book than might be supposed +from a casual glance at it. It was written with no more +serious purpose than to entertain, but it is by no means +to be despised. So far as it goes, it represents careful +work. It would be wrong to pass over Lecky's brilliant +essay on witchcraft in his <i>History of Rationalism</i>, valuable +of course rather as an interpretation than as an +historical account. Lecky said many things about +witchcraft that needed to be said, and said them well. +It is my belief that his verdicts as to the importance +of sundry factors may have to be modified; but, +however that be, the importance of his essay must +always be recognized. One must not omit in passing +James Russell Lowell's charming essay on the subject. +Both Lecky and Lowell of course touched English +witchcraft but lightly. Since Mrs. Lynn Linton's no +careful treatment of English witchcraft proper has appeared. +In 1907, however, Professor Kittredge published +his <i>Notes on Witchcraft</i>, the sixty-seven pages of +which with their footnotes contain a more scrupulous +sifting of the evidence as to witchcraft in England than +is to be found in any other treatment. Professor Kittredge +is chiefly interested in English witchcraft as it +relates itself to witchcraft in New England, but his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> +work contains much that is fresh about the belief in England. +As to the rôle and the importance of various +actors in the drama and as to sundry minor matters, +the writer has found himself forced to divergence of +view. He recognizes nevertheless the importance +of Professor Kittredge's contribution to the study +of the whole subject and acknowledges his own indebtedness +to the essay for suggestion and guidance.</p> + +<p>The author cannot hope that the work here presented +is final. Unfortunately there is still hidden away in +England an unexplored mass of local records. Some of +them no doubt contain accounts of witch trials. I have +used chiefly such printed and manuscript materials as +were accessible in London and Oxford. Some day perhaps +I may find time to go the rounds of the English +counties and search the masses of gaol delivery records +and municipal archives. From the really small amount +of new material on the subject brought to light +by the Historical Manuscripts Commission and by the +publication of many municipal records, it seems improbable +that such a search would uncover so many +unlisted trials as seriously to modify the narrative. +Nevertheless until such a search is made no history of +the subject has the right to be counted final. Mr. +Charles W. Wallace, the student of Shakespeare, tells +me that in turning over the multitudinous records of +the Star Chamber he found a few witch cases. Professor +Kittredge believes that there is still a great deal +of such material to be turned up in private collections +and local archives. Any information on this matter +which any student of English local history can give me +will be gratefully received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> + +<p>I wish to express my thanks for reading parts of the +manuscript to William Savage Johnson of Kansas University +and to Miss Ada Comstock of the University of +Minnesota. For general assistance and advice on the +subject I am under obligations to Professor Wilbur C. +Abbott and to Professor George Burton Adams of Yale +University. It is quite impossible to say how very much +I owe to Professor George L. Burr of Cornell. From +cover to cover the book, since the award to it of the +Adams Prize, has profited from his painstaking criticism +and wise suggestion.</p> + + +<div class="right">W. N.</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Minneapolis</span>, <i>October 10, 1911</i>.</p> +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></div> + + + + +<hr class="front" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></div> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" summary="table of contents" width="60%"> +<tr><td></td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#PREFACE">v</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Beginnings of English Witchcraft</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Witchcraft under Elizabeth</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Reginald Scot</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Exorcists</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">James I and Witchcraft</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Notable Jacobean Cases</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Lancashire Witches and Charles I</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Matthew Hopkins</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Witchcraft during the Commonwealth and Protectorate</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER X.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Literature of Witchcraft from 1603 to 1660</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Witchcraft under Charles II and James II</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Glanvill and Webster and the Literary War over Witchcraft, 1660-1688</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">284</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Final Decline</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">313</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Close of the Literary Controversy</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Appendices</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX">345</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A. Pamphlet Literature</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_A">345</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">B. List of Persons Sentenced to Death for Witchcraft during the Reign of James I</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_B">383</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">C. List of Cases of Witchcraft, 1558-1717, with References to Sources and Literature</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_C">384</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#INDEX">421</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr class="front" /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Beginnings of English Witchcraft.</h3> + + +<p>It has been said by a thoughtful writer that the subject<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span> +of witchcraft has hardly received that place which +it deserves in the history of opinions. There has been, +of course, a reason for this neglect—the fact that the belief +in witchcraft is no longer existent among intelligent +people and that its history, in consequence, seems to +possess rather an antiquarian than a living interest. No +one can tell the story of the witch trials of sixteenth +and seventeenth century England without digging up +a buried past, and the process of exhumation is not +always pleasant. Yet the study of English witchcraft +is more than an unsightly exposure of a forgotten +superstition. There were few aspects of sixteenth and +seventeenth century life that were not affected by the +ugly belief. It is quite impossible to grasp the social conditions, +it is impossible to understand the opinions, fears, +and hopes of the men and women who lived in Elizabethan +and Stuart England, without some knowledge +of the part played in that age by witchcraft. It was a +matter that concerned all classes from the royal household +to the ignorant denizens of country villages. Privy +councillors anxious about their sovereign and thrifty +peasants worrying over their crops, clergymen alert to +detect the Devil in their own parishes, medical quacks +eager to profit by the fear of evil women, justices of the +peace zealous to beat down the works of Satan—all +classes, indeed—believed more or less sincerely in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +dangerous powers of human creatures who had surrendered +themselves to the Evil One.</p> + +<p>Witchcraft, in a general and vague sense, was something +very old in English history. In a more specific +and limited sense it is a comparatively modern phenomenon. +This leads us to a definition of the term. It +is a definition that can be given adequately only in an +historical way. A group of closely related and somewhat +ill defined conceptions went far back. Some of +them, indeed, were to be found in the Old Testament, +many of them in the Latin and Greek writers. The +word witchcraft itself belonged to Anglo-Saxon days. +As early as the seventh century Theodore of Tarsus +imposed penances upon magicians and enchanters, and +the laws, from Alfred on, abound with mentions of +witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_2-1_1" id="FNanchor_2-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> From these passages the meaning of the +word witch as used by the early English may be fairly +deduced. The word was the current English term for +one who used spells and charms, who was assisted by +evil spirits to accomplish certain ends. It will be seen +that this is by no means the whole meaning of the term +in later times. Nothing is yet said about the transformation +of witches into other shapes, and there is no +mention of a compact, implicit or otherwise, with the +Devil; there is no allusion to the nocturnal meetings of +the Devil's worshippers and to the orgies that took place +upon those occasions; there is no elaborate and systematic +theological explanation of human relations with +demons.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p><p>But these notions were to reach England soon enough. +Already there were germinating in southern Europe +ideas out of which the completer notions were to spring. +As early as the close of the ninth century certain Byzantine +traditions were being introduced into the +West. There were legends of men who had made written +compacts with the Devil, men whom he promised to +assist in this world in return for their souls in the next.<a name="FNanchor_3-1_2" id="FNanchor_3-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_3-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +But, while such stories were current throughout the +Middle Ages, the notion behind them does not seem to +have been connected with the other features of what +was to make up the idea of witchcraft until about the +middle of the fourteenth century. It was about that +time that the belief in the "Sabbat" or nocturnal assembly +of the witches made its appearance.<a name="FNanchor_3-2_3" id="FNanchor_3-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The +belief grew up that witches rode through the air to these +meetings, that they renounced Christ and engaged in +foul forms of homage to Satan. Lea tells us that towards +the close of the century the University of Paris +formulated the theory that a pact with Satan was inherent +in all magic, and judges began to connect this +pact with the old belief in night riders through the air. +The countless confessions that resulted from the carefully +framed questions of the judges served to develop +and systematize the theory of the subject. The witch +was much more than a sorcerer. Sorcerers had been +those who, through the aid of evil spirits, by the use +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>of certain words or of representations of persons or +things produced changes above the ordinary course of +nature. "The witch," says Lea, "has abandoned +Christianity, has renounced her baptism, has worshipped +Satan as her God, has surrendered herself to +him, body and soul, and exists only to be his instrument +in working the evil to her fellow creatures which he cannot +accomplish without a human agent."<a name="FNanchor_4-1_4" id="FNanchor_4-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4-1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> This was the +final and definite notion of a witch. It was the conception +that controlled European opinion on the subject +from the latter part of the fourteenth to the close of the +seventeenth century. It was, as has been seen, an +elaborate theological notion that had grown out of the +comparatively simple and vague ideas to be found in the +scriptural and classical writers.</p> + +<p>It may well be doubted whether this definite and intricate +theological notion of witchcraft reached England +so early as the fourteenth century. Certainly not until +a good deal later—if negative evidence is at all trustworthy—was +a clear distinction made between sorcery +and witchcraft. The witches searched for by Henry +IV, the professor of divinity, the friar, the clerk, and +the witch of Eye, who were hurried before the Council +of Henry VI, that unfortunate Duchess of Gloucester +who had to walk the streets of London, the Duchess +of Bedford, the conspirators against Edward IV who +were supposed to use magic, the unlucky mistress of +Edward IV—none of these who through the course of +two centuries were charged with magical misdeeds +were, so far as we know, accused of those dreadful relations +with the Devil, the nauseating details of which +fill out the later narratives of witch history.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p><p>The truth seems to be that the idea of witchcraft was +not very clearly defined and differentiated in the minds +of ordinary Englishmen until after the beginning of +legislation upon the subject. It is not impossible that +there were English theologians who could have set forth +the complete philosophy of the belief, but to the average +mind sorcery, conjuration, enchantment, and witchcraft +were but evil ways of mastering nature. All that was +changed when laws were passed. With legislation came +greatly increased numbers of accusations; with accusations +and executions came treatises and theory. Continental +writers were consulted, and the whole system +and science of the subject were soon elaborated for all +who read.</p> + +<p>With the earlier period, which has been sketched +merely by way of definition, this monograph cannot +attempt to deal. It limits itself to a narrative of the +witch trials, and incidentally of opinion as to witchcraft, +after there was definite legislation by Parliament. The +statute of the fifth year of Elizabeth's reign marks a +point in the history of the judicial persecution at which +an account may very naturally begin. The year 1558 +has been selected as the date because from the very +opening of the reign which was to be signalized by the +passing of that statute and was to be characterized by a +serious effort to enforce it, the persecution was preparing.</p> + +<p>Up to that time the crime of sorcery had been dealt +with in a few early instances by the common-law courts, +occasionally (where politics were involved) by the +privy council, but more usually, it is probable, by the +church. This, indeed, may easily be illustrated from +the works of law. Britton and Fleta include an inquiry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +about sorcerers as one of the articles of the sheriff's +tourn. A note upon Britton, however, declares that it +is for the ecclesiastical court to try such offenders and to +deliver them to be put to death in the king's court, but +that the king himself may proceed against them if he +pleases.<a name="FNanchor_6-1_5" id="FNanchor_6-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_6-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> While there is some overlapping of procedure +implied by this, the confusion seems to have been yet +greater in actual practice. A brief narrative of some cases +prior to 1558 will illustrate the strangely unsettled state +of procedure. Pollock and Maitland relate several +trials to be found in the early pleas. In 1209 one woman +accused another of sorcery in the king's court and +the defendant cleared herself by the ordeal. In 1279 +a man accused of killing a witch who assaulted him in +his house was fined, but only because he had fled away. +Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and treasurer of +Edward I, was accused of sorcery and homage to Satan +and cleared himself with the compurgators. In 1325 +more than twenty men were indicted and tried by the +king's bench for murder by tormenting a waxen image. +All of them were acquitted. In 1371 there was +brought before the king's bench an inhabitant of Southwark +who was charged with sorcery, but he was finally +discharged on swearing that he would never be a sorcerer.<a name="FNanchor_6-2_6" id="FNanchor_6-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>It will be observed that these early cases were all of +them tried in the secular courts; but there is no reason +to doubt that the ecclesiastical courts were quite as active, +and their zeal must have been quickened by the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>statute of 1401, which in cases of heresy made the lay +power their executioner. It was at nearly the same +time, however, that the charge of sorcery began to be +frequently used as a political weapon. In such cases, +of course, the accused was usually a person of influence +and the matter was tried in the council. It will be seen, +then, that the crime was one that might fall either under +ecclesiastical or conciliar jurisdiction and the particular +circumstances usually determined finally the jurisdiction. +When Henry IV was informed that the diocese +of Lincoln was full of sorcerers, magicians, enchanters, +necromancers, diviners, and soothsayers, he +sent a letter to the bishop requiring him to search for +sorcerers and to commit them to prison after conviction, +or even before, if it should seem expedient.<a name="FNanchor_7-1_7" id="FNanchor_7-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> This was +entrusting the matter to the church, but the order was +given by authority of the king, not improbably after +the matter had been discussed in the council. In the +reign of Henry VI conciliar and ecclesiastical authorities +both took part at different times and in different +ways. Thomas Northfield, a member of the Order of +Preachers in Worcester and a professor of divinity, +was brought before the council, together with all suspected +matter belonging to him, and especially his books +treating of sorcery. Pike does not tell us the outcome.<a name="FNanchor_7-2_8" id="FNanchor_7-2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_7-2_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +In the same year there were summoned before the council +three humbler sorcerers, Margery Jourdemain, John +Virley, a cleric, and John Ashwell, a friar of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>Order of the Holy Cross. It would be hard to say +whether the three were in any way connected with +political intrigue. It is possible that they were suspected +of sorcery against the sovereign. They were all, +however, dismissed on giving security.<a name="FNanchor_8-1_9" id="FNanchor_8-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_8-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It was only a +few years after this instance of conciliar jurisdiction +that a much more important case was turned over to +the clergy. The story of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of +Gloucester, is a familiar one. It was determined by the +enemies of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester to attack +him through his wife, who was believed to be influential +with the young king. The first move was made by arresting +a Roger Bolingbroke who had been connected +with the duke and the duchess, and who was said to be +an astronomer or necromancer. It was declared that +he had cast the duchess's horoscope with a view to ascertaining +her chances to the throne. Bolingbroke made +confession, and Eleanor was then brought before "certayne +bisshoppis of the kyngis." In the mean time +several lords, members of the privy council, were authorized +to "enquire of al maner tresons, sorcery, and +alle othir thyngis that myghte in eny wise ... concerne +harmfulli the kyngis persone."<a name="FNanchor_8-2_10" id="FNanchor_8-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_8-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Bolingbroke and a +clergyman, Thomas Southwell, were indicted of treason +with the duchess as accessory. With them was accused +that Margery Jourdemain who had been released +ten years before. Eleanor was then reexamined before +the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Norwich, she was +condemned as guilty, and required to walk barefoot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>through the streets of London, which she "dede righte +mekely." The rest of her life she spent in a northern +prison. Bolingbroke was executed as a traitor, and +Margery Jourdemain was burnt at Smithfield.<a name="FNanchor_9-1_11" id="FNanchor_9-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_9-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>The case of the Duchess of Bedford—another instance +of the connection between sorcery and political +intrigue—fell naturally into the hands of the council. +It was believed by those who could understand in no +other way the king's infatuation that he had been bewitched +by the mother of the queen. The story was +whispered from ear to ear until the duchess got wind +of it and complained to the council against her maligners. +The council declared her cleared of suspicion +and ordered that the decision should be "enacted of +record."<a name="FNanchor_9-2_12" id="FNanchor_9-2_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_9-2_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>The charge of sorcery brought by the protector Richard +of Gloucester against Jane Shore, who had been the +mistress of Edward IV, never came to trial and in +consequence illustrates neither ecclesiastical nor conciliar +jurisdiction. It is worthy of note however that the +accusation was preferred by the protector—who was +soon to be Richard III—in the council chamber.<a name="FNanchor_9-3_13" id="FNanchor_9-3_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_9-3_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>It will be seen that these cases prove very little as to +procedure in the matter of sorcery and witchcraft. +They are cases that arose in a disturbed period and that +concerned chiefly people of note. That they were tried +before the bishops or before the privy council does not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>mean that all such charges were brought into those +courts. There must have been less important cases that +were never brought before the council or the great +ecclesiastical courts. It seems probable—to reason +backward from later practice—that less important +trials were conducted almost exclusively by the minor +church courts.<a name="FNanchor_10-1_14" id="FNanchor_10-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_10-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>This would at first lead us to suspect that, when the +state finally began to legislate against witchcraft by +statute, it was endeavoring to wrest jurisdiction of the +crime out of the hands of the church and to put it into +secular hands. Such a supposition, however, there is +nothing to justify. It seems probable, on the contrary, +that the statute enacted in the reign of Henry VIII was +passed rather to support the church in its struggle +against sorcery and witchcraft than to limit its jurisdiction +in the matter. It was to assist in checking these +practitioners that the state stepped in. At another +point in this chapter we shall have occasion to note the +great interest in sorcery and all kindred subjects that +was springing up over England, and we shall at times +observe some of the manifestations of this interest as +well as some of the causes for it. Here it is necessary +only to urge the importance of this interest as accounting +for the passage of a statute.<a name="FNanchor_10-2_15" id="FNanchor_10-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_10-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p><p>Chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII states its purpose +clearly: "Where," reads the preamble, "dyvers and +sundrie persones unlawfully have devised and practised +Invocacions and conjuracions of Sprites, pretendyng +by suche meanes to understande and get Knowlege for +their owne lucre in what place treasure of golde and Silver +shulde or mought be founde or had ... and also +have used and occupied wichecraftes, inchauntmentes +and sorceries to the distruccion of their neighbours persones +and goodes." A description was given of the +methods practised, and it was enacted that the use of +any invocation or conjuration of spirits, witchcrafts, +enchantments, or sorceries should be considered felony.<a name="FNanchor_11-1_16" id="FNanchor_11-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_11-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +It will be observed that the law made no graduation of +offences. Everything was listed as felony. No later +piece of legislation on the subject was so sweeping in +its severity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p><p>The law remained on the statute-book only six years. +In the early part of the reign of Edward VI, when the +protector Somerset was in power, a policy of great +leniency in respect to felonies was proposed. In December +of 1547 a bill was introduced into Parliament +to repeal certain statutes for treason and felony. "This +bill being a matter of great concern to every subject, a +committee was appointed, consisting of the Archbishop +of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord chamberlain, +the Marquis of Dorset, the Earls of Shrewsbury +and Southampton, the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and +Worcester, the Lords Cobham, Clinton, and Wentworth, +with certain of the king's learned council; all which +noblemen were appointed to meet a committee of the +Commons ... in order to treat and commune on the +purport of the said bill."<a name="FNanchor_12-1_17" id="FNanchor_12-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_12-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The Commons, it seems, +had already prepared a bill of their own, but this they +were willing to drop and the Lords' measure with some +amendments was finally passed. It was under this wide +repeal of felonies that chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII +was finally annulled. Whether the question of witchcraft +came up for special consideration or not, we are +not informed. We do know that the Bishops of London, +Durham, Ely, Hereford, and Chichester, took exception +to some amendments that were inserted in the +act of repeal,<a name="FNanchor_12-2_18" id="FNanchor_12-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_12-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and it is not impossible that they were +opposed to repealing the act against witchcraft. Certainly +there is no reason to suppose that the church was +resisting the encroachment of the state in the subject.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact it is probable that, in the general +question of repeal of felonies, the question of witch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>craft +received scant attention. There is indeed an interesting +story that seems to point in that direction +and that deserves repeating also as an illustration of +the protector's attitude towards the question. Edward +Underhill gives the narrative in his autobiography: +"When we hade dyned, the maior sentt to [two] off his +offycers with me to seke Alene; whome we mett withalle +in Poles, and toke hym with us unto his chamber, +wheare we founde fygures sett to calke the nativetie +off the kynge, and a jugementt gevyne off his deathe, +wheroff this folyshe wreche thoughte hymselfe so sure +thatt he and his conselars the papistes bruted it all +over. The kynge laye att Hamtone courte the same +tyme, and me lord protector at the Syone; unto whome +I caryed this Alen, with his bokes off conejuracyons, +cearkles, and many thynges beloungynge to thatt dyvlyshe +art, wiche he affyrmed before me lorde was a lawfulle +cyens [science], for the statute agaynst souche +was repealed. 'Thow folyshe knave! (sayde me lorde) +yff thou and all thatt be off thy cyens telle me what I +shalle do to-morow, I wylle geve the alle thatt I have'; +commaundynge me to cary hym unto the Tower." Alen +was examined about his science and it was discovered +that he was "a very unlearned asse, and a sorcerer, for +the wiche he was worthye hangynge, sayde Mr. Recorde." +He was however kept in the Tower "about the +space off a yere, and then by frendshipe delyvered. +So scapithe alwayes the weked."<a name="FNanchor_13-1_19" id="FNanchor_13-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_13-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>But the wicked were not long to escape. The beginning +of Elizabeth's reign saw a serious and successful +effort to put on the statute-book definite and severe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>penalties for conjuration, sorcery, witchcraft, and related +crimes. The question was taken up in the very +first year of the new reign and a bill was draughted.<a name="FNanchor_14-1_20" id="FNanchor_14-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_14-1_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +It was not, however, until 1563 that the statute was +finally passed. It was then enacted that those who +"shall use, practise, or exercise any Witchecrafte, +Enchantment, Charme or Sorcerie, whereby any person +shall happen to bee killed or destroyed, ... +their Concellors and Aidours, ... shall suffer paynes +of Deathe as a Felon or Felons." It was further declared +that those by whose practices any person was +wasted, consumed, or lamed, should suffer for the first +offence one year's imprisonment and should be put in +the pillory four times. For the second offence death +was the penalty. It was further provided that those +who by witchcraft presumed to discover treasure or +to find stolen property or to "provoke any person to +unlawfull love" should suffer a year's imprisonment +and four appearances in the pillory.</p> + +<p>With this law the history of the prosecution of witchcraft +in England as a secular crime may well begin. +The question naturally arises, What was the occasion +of this law? How did it happen that just at this particular +time so drastic a measure was passed and put +into operation? Fortunately part of the evidence exists +upon which to frame an answer. The English churchmen +who had been driven out of England during the +Marian persecution had many of them sojourned in +Zurich and Geneva, where the extirpation of witches +was in full progress, and had talked over the matter +with eminent Continental theologians. With the acces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>sion +of Elizabeth these men returned to England in +force and became prominent in church and state, many +of them receiving bishoprics. It is not possible to +show that they all were influential in putting through +the statute of the fifth year of Elizabeth. It is clear +that one of them spoke out plainly on the subject. It +can hardly be doubted that he represented the opinions +of many other ecclesiastics who had come under the +same influences during their exile.<a name="FNanchor_15-1_21" id="FNanchor_15-1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_15-1_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> John Jewel was +an Anglican of Calvinistic sympathies who on his return +to England at Elizabeth's accession had been appointed +Bishop of Salisbury. Within a short time he +came to occupy a prominent position in the court. He +preached before the Queen and accompanied her on a +visit to Oxford. It was in the course of one of his first +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>sermons—somewhere between November of 1559 and +March of 1560<a name="FNanchor_16-1_22" id="FNanchor_16-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_16-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>—that he laid before her his convictions +on witchcraft. It is, he tells her, "the horrible using of +your poor subjects," that forces him to speak. "This +kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers) within +these few last years are marvellously increased within +this your grace's realm. These eyes have seen most +evident and manifest marks of their wickedness. Your +grace's subjects pine away even unto death, their colour +fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, +their senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poor subjects' +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>most humble petition unto your highness is, that the +laws touching such malefactors may be put in due execution."</p> + +<p>The church historian, Strype, conjectures that this +sermon was the cause of the law passed in the fifth year +of Elizabeth's reign, by which witchcraft was again +made a felony, as it had been in the reign of Henry +VIII.<a name="FNanchor_17-1_23" id="FNanchor_17-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_17-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Whatever weight we may attach to Strype's +suggestion, we have every right to believe that Jewel +introduced foreign opinion on witchcraft. Very probably +there were many returned exiles as well as others +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>who brought back word of the crusade on the Continent; +but Jewel's words put the matter formally before +the queen and her government.<a name="FNanchor_18-1_24" id="FNanchor_18-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_18-1_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>We can trace the effect of the ecclesiastic's appeal +still further. The impression produced by it was responsible +probably not only for the passage of the law +but also for the issue of commissions to the justices of +the peace to apprehend all the witches they were able to +find in their jurisdictions.<a name="FNanchor_18-2_25" id="FNanchor_18-2_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_18-2_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>It can hardly be doubted that the impression produced +by the bishop's sermon serves in part to explain +the beginning of the state's attack upon witches. Yet +one naturally inquires after some other factor in the +problem. Is it not likely that there were in England +itself certain peculiar conditions, certain special circumstances, +that served to forward the attack? To +answer that query, we must recall the situation in +England when Elizabeth took the throne. Elizabeth +was a Protestant, and her accession meant the relinquishment +of the Catholic hold upon England. But it +was not long before the claims of Mary, Queen of +Scots, began to give the English ministers bad dreams. +Catholic and Spanish plots against the life of Elizabeth +kept the government detectives on the lookout. Perhaps +because it was deemed the hardest to circumvent, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>the use of conjuration against the life of the queen was +most feared. It was a method too that appealed to conspirators, +who never questioned its efficacy, and who +anticipated little risk of discovery.</p> + +<p>To understand why the English government should +have been so alarmed at the efforts of the conjurers, +we shall have to go back to the half-century that preceded +the reign of the great queen and review briefly +the rise of those curious traders in mystery. The earlier +half of the fifteenth century, when the witch fires were +already lighted in South Germany, saw the coming of +conjurers in England. Their numbers soon evidenced +a growing interest in the supernatural upon the part +of the English and foreshadowed the growing faith in +witchcraft. From the scattered local records the facts +have been pieced together to show that here and there +professors of magic powers were beginning to get a +hearing. As they first appear upon the scene, the conjurers +may be grouped in two classes, the position +seekers and the treasure seekers. To the first belong +those who used incantations and charms to win the +favor of the powerful, and so to gain advancement for +themselves or for their clients.<a name="FNanchor_19-1_26" id="FNanchor_19-1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_19-1_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> It was a time when +there was every encouragement to try these means. +Men like Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell had risen from +humble rank to the highest places in the state. Their +careers seemed inexplicable, if not uncanny. It was +easy to believe that unfair and unlawful practices had +been used. What had been done before could be done +again. So the dealers in magic may have reasoned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +At all events, whatever their mental operations, they +experimented with charms which were to gain the favor +of the great, and some of their operations came to +the ears of the court.</p> + +<p>The treasure seekers<a name="FNanchor_20-1_27" id="FNanchor_20-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_20-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> were more numerous. Every +now and then in the course of English history treasures +have been unearthed, many of them buried in Roman +times. Stories of lucky finds had of course gained wide +circulation. Here was the opportunity of the bankrupt +adventurer and the stranded promoter. The treasures +could be found by the science of magic. The notion +was closely akin to the still current idea that wells +can be located by the use of hazel wands. But none +of the conjurers—and this seems a curious fact to one +familiar with the English stories of the supernatural—ever +lit upon the desired treasure. Their efforts hardly +aroused public interest, least of all alarm. Experimenters, +who fifty years later would have been hurried +before the privy council, were allowed to conjure and +dig as they pleased. Henry VIII even sold the right in +one locality, and sold it at a price which showed how +lightly he regarded it.<a name="FNanchor_20-2_28" id="FNanchor_20-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_20-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>Other forms of magic were of course practiced. By +the time that Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, it is +safe to say that the practice of forbidden arts had become +wide-spread in England. Reginald Scot a little +later declared that every parish was full of men and +women who claimed to work miracles.<a name="FNanchor_20-3_29" id="FNanchor_20-3_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_20-3_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> Most of them +were women, and their performances read like those +of the gipsy fortune-tellers today. "Cunning women" +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>they called themselves. They were many of them +semi-medical or pseudo-medical practitioners<a name="FNanchor_21-1_30" id="FNanchor_21-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> who +used herbs and extracts, and, when those failed, charms +and enchantments, to heal the sick. If they were fairly +fortunate, they became known as "good witches." Particularly +in connection with midwifery were their incantations +deemed effective.<a name="FNanchor_21-2_31" id="FNanchor_21-2_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-2_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> From such functions it +was no far call to forecast the outcome of love affairs, +or to prepare potions which would ensure love.<a name="FNanchor_21-3_32" id="FNanchor_21-3_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-3_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> They +became general helpers to the distressed. They could +tell where lost property was to be found, an undertaking +closely related to that of the treasure seekers.<a name="FNanchor_21-4_33" id="FNanchor_21-4_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-4_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>It was usually in the less serious diseases<a name="FNanchor_21-5_34" id="FNanchor_21-5_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-5_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> that these +cunning folk were consulted. They were called upon +often indeed—if one fragmentary evidence may be +trusted—to diagnose the diseases and to account for the +deaths of domestic animals.<a name="FNanchor_21-6_35" id="FNanchor_21-6_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_21-6_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> It may very easily be that +it was from the necessity of explaining the deaths of animals +that the practitioners of magic began to talk +about witchcraft and to throw out a hint that some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>witch was at the back of the matter. It would be in line +with their own pretensions. Were they not good +witches? Was it not their province to overcome the +machinations of the black witches, that is, witches who +wrought evil rather than good? The disease of an +animal was hard to prescribe for. A sick horse would +hardly respond to the waving of hands and a jumble +of strange words. The animal was, in all probability, +bewitched.</p> + +<p>At any rate, whether in this particular manner or not, +it became shortly the duty of the cunning women to +recognize the signs of witchcraft, to prescribe for it, +and if possible to detect the witch. In many cases the +practitioner wisely enough refused to name any one, +but described the appearance of the guilty party and +set forth a series of operations by which to expose her +machinations. If certain herbs were plucked and +treated in certain ways, if such and such words were +said, the guilty party would appear at the door. At +other times the wise woman gave a perfectly recognizable +description of the guilty one and offered remedies +that would nullify her maleficent influences. No +doubt the party indicated as the witch was very often +another of the "good witches," perhaps a rival. +Throughout the records of the superstition are scattered +examples of wise women upon whom suspicion +suddenly lighted, and who were arraigned and sent to +the gallows. Beyond question the suspicion began often +with the ill words of a neighbor,<a name="FNanchor_22-1_36" id="FNanchor_22-1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_22-1_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> perhaps of a competitor, +words that started an attack upon the woman's +reputation that she was unable to repel.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p><p>It is not to be supposed that the art of cunning was +confined to the female sex. Throughout the reign of +Elizabeth, the realm was alive with men who were +pretenders to knowledge of mysteries. So closely was +the occupation allied to that of the physician that no such +strict line as now exists between reputable physicians +and quack doctors separated the "good witches" from +the regular practicers of medicine. It was so customary +in Elizabethan times for thoroughly reputable +and even eminent medical men to explain baffling cases +as the results of witchcraft<a name="FNanchor_23-1_37" id="FNanchor_23-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_23-1_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> that to draw the line of demarcation +between them and the pretenders who suggested +by means of a charm or a glass a maleficent +agent would be impossible. Granted the phenomena of +conjuration and witchcraft as facts—and no one had +yet disputed them—it was altogether easy to believe +that good witches who antagonized the works of black +witches were more dependable than the family physician, +who could but suggest the cause of sickness. The +regular practitioner must often have created business +for his brother of the cunning arts.</p> + +<p>One would like to know what these practicers +thought of their own arts. Certainly some of them accomplished +cures. Mental troubles that baffled the ordinary +physician would offer the "good witch" a rare +field for successful endeavor. Such would be able not +only to persuade a community of their good offices, but +to deceive themselves. Not all of them, however, by any +means, were self-deceived. Conscious fraud played a +part in a large percentage of cases. One witch was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>very naive in her confession of fraud. When suspected +of sorcery and cited to court, she was said to +have frankly recited her charm:</p> + +<div class="block"><div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"My lofe in my lappe,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">My penny in my purse,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">You are never the better,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I am never the worse."</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>She was acquitted and doubtless continued to add penny +to penny.<a name="FNanchor_24-1_38" id="FNanchor_24-1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_24-1_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>We need not, indeed, be surprised that the state +should have been remiss in punishing a crime so vague +in character and so closely related to an honorable profession. +Except where conjuration had affected high +interests of state, it had been practically overlooked by +the government. Now and then throughout the fourteenth +and fifteenth centuries there had been isolated +plots against the sovereign, in which conjury had +played a conspicuous part. With these few exceptions +the crime had been one left to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. +But now the state was ready to reclaim its jurisdiction +over these crimes and to assume a very positive attitude +of hostility towards them. This came about in +a way that has already been briefly indicated. The +government of the queen found itself threatened constantly +by plots for making away with the queen, plots +which their instigators hoped would overturn the Protestant +regime and bring England back into the fold. +Elizabeth had hardly mounted her throne when her +councillors began to suspect the use of sorcery and con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>juration +against her life. As a result they instituted +the most painstaking inquiries into all reported cases of +the sort, especially in and about London and the neighboring +counties. Every Catholic was suspected. Two +cases that were taken up within the first year came to +nothing, but a third trial proved more serious. In November +of 1558 Sir Anthony Fortescue,<a name="FNanchor_25-1_39" id="FNanchor_25-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_25-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> member of +a well known Catholic family, was arrested, together +with several accomplices, upon the charge of casting the +horoscope of the queen's life. Fortescue was soon released, +but in 1561 he was again put in custody, this +time with two brothers-in-law, Edmund and Arthur +Pole, nephews of the famous cardinal of that name. +The plot that came to light had many ramifications. It +was proposed to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, to Edmund +Pole, and from Flanders to proclaim her Queen +of England. In the meantime Elizabeth was to die a +natural death—at least so the conspirators claimed—prophesied +for her by two conjurers, John Prestall and +Edmund Cosyn, with the assistance of a "wicked +spryte." It was discovered that the plot involved the +French and Spanish ambassadors. Relations between +Paris and London became strained. The conspirators +were tried and sentenced to death. Fortescue himself, +perhaps because he was a second cousin of the queen +and brother of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seems +to have escaped the gallows.<a name="FNanchor_25-2_40" id="FNanchor_25-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_25-2_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>The Fortescue affair was, however, but one of many +conspiracies on foot during the time. Throughout the +sixties and the seventies the queen's councillors were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>on the lookout. Justices of the peace and other prominent +men in the counties were kept informed by the +privy council of reported conjurers, and they were instructed +to send in what evidence they could gather +against them. It is remarkable that three-fourths of +the cases that came under investigation were from a +territory within thirty miles of London. Two-thirds +of them were from Essex. Not all the conjurers were +charged with plotting against the queen, but that charge +was most common. It is safe to suppose that, in the +cases where that accusation was not preferred, it was +nevertheless the alarm of the privy council for the life +of the queen that had prompted the investigation and +arrest.</p> + +<p>Between 1578 and 1582, critical years in the affairs +of the Scottish queen, the anxiety of the London +authorities was intense<a name="FNanchor_26-1_41" id="FNanchor_26-1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_26-1_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>—their precautions were redoubled. +Representatives of the government were +sent out to search for conjurers and were paid well for +their services.<a name="FNanchor_26-2_42" id="FNanchor_26-2_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_26-2_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> The Earl of Shrewsbury, a member +of the council who had charge of the now captive +Queen Mary, kept in his employ special detectors of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>conjuring.<a name="FNanchor_27-1_43" id="FNanchor_27-1_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_27-1_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Nothing about Elizabeth's government +was better organized than Cecil's detective service, and +the state papers show that the ferreting out of the conjurers +was by no means the least of its work. It was +a service carried on, of course, as quietly as could +be, and yet the cases now and again came to light and +made clear to the public that the government was very +fearful of conjurers' attacks upon the queen. No +doubt the activity of the council put all conjurers under +public suspicion and in some degree roused public resentment +against them.</p> + +<p>This brings us back to the point: What had the conjurers +to do with witchcraft? By this time the answer +is fairly obvious. The practisers of the magic arts, +the charmers and enchanters, were responsible for developing +the notions of witchcraft. The good witch +brought in her company the black witch. This in itself +might never have meant more than an increased activity +in the church courts. But when Protestant England +grew suddenly nervous for the life of the queen, +when the conjurers became a source of danger to the +sovereign, and the council commenced its campaign +against them, the conditions had been created in which +witchcraft became at once the most dangerous and detested +of crimes. While the government was busy +putting down the conjurers, the aroused popular sentiment +was compelling the justices of the peace and then +the assize judges to hang the witches.</p> + +<p>This cannot be better illustrated than by the Abingdon +affair of 1578-1579. Word had been carried to the +privy council that Sir Henry Newell, justice of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>peace, had committed some women near Abingdon on +the charge of making waxen images.<a name="FNanchor_28-1_44" id="FNanchor_28-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_28-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> The government +was at once alarmed and sent a message to Sir Henry +and to the Dean of Windsor instructing them to find +out the facts and to discover if the plots were directed +against the queen. The precaution was unnecessary. +There was no ground for believing that the designs of +the women accused had included the queen. Indeed +the evidence of guilt of any kind was very flimsy. But +the excitement of the public had been stirred to the +highest pitch. The privy council had shown its fear +of the women and all four of them went to the gallows.<a name="FNanchor_28-2_45" id="FNanchor_28-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_28-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>The same situation that brought about the attack +upon witchcraft and conjuration was no doubt responsible +for the transfer of jurisdiction over the crime. +We have already seen that the practice of conjuration +had probably been left largely to the episcopal hierarchy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +for punishment.<a name="FNanchor_29-1_46" id="FNanchor_29-1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-1_46" class="fnanchor"></a> The archdeacons were expected +in their visitations to inquire into the practice +of enchantment and magic within the parishes and to +make report.<a name="FNanchor_29-2_47" id="FNanchor_29-2_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-2_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> In the reign of Elizabeth it became no +light duty. The church set itself to suppress both the +consulter and the consulted.<a name="FNanchor_29-3_48" id="FNanchor_29-3_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-3_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> By the largest number +of recorded cases deal of course with the first class. It +was very easy when sick or in trouble to go to a professed +conjurer for help.<a name="FNanchor_29-4_49" id="FNanchor_29-4_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-4_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> It was like seeking a physician's +service, as we have seen. The church frowned +upon it, but the danger involved in disobeying the +church was not deemed great. The cunning man or +woman was of course the one who ran the great risk. +When worst came to worst and the ecclesiastical power +took cognizance of his profession, the best he could do +was to plead that he was a "good witch" and rendered +valuable services to the community.<a name="FNanchor_29-5_50" id="FNanchor_29-5_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-5_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> But a good end +was in the eyes of the church no excuse for an evil +means. The good witches were dealers with evil +spirits and hence to be repressed.</p> + +<p>Yet the church was very light in its punishments. +In the matter of penalties, indeed, consulter and consulted +fared nearly alike, and both got off easily. Public +confession and penance in one or more specifically +designated churches, usually in the nearest parish +church, constituted the customary penalty.<a name="FNanchor_29-6_51" id="FNanchor_29-6_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_29-6_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> In a few +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>instances it was coupled with the requirement that the +criminal should stand in the pillory, taper in hand, at +several places at stated times.<a name="FNanchor_30-1_52" id="FNanchor_30-1_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_30-1_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> The ecclesiastical records +are so full of church penances that a student is +led to wonder how effectual they were in shaming the +penitent into better conduct. It may well be guessed +that most of the criminals were not sensitive souls that +would suffer profoundly from the disgrace incurred.</p> + +<p>The control of matters of this kind was in the hands +of the church by sufferance only. So long as the state +was not greatly interested, the church was permitted to +retain its jurisdiction.<a name="FNanchor_30-2_53" id="FNanchor_30-2_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_30-2_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Doubtless the kings of England +would have claimed the state's right of jurisdiction +if it had become a matter of dispute. The church itself +recognized the secular power in more important cases.<a name="FNanchor_30-3_54" id="FNanchor_30-3_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_30-3_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> +In such cases the archdeacon usually acted with the +justice of peace in conducting the examination,<a name="FNanchor_30-4_55" id="FNanchor_30-4_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_30-4_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> as +in rendering sentence. Even then, however, the penalty +was as a rule ecclesiastical. But, with the second half +of the sixteenth century, there arose new conditions +which resulted in the transfer of this control to the +state. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established +a Church of England around the king as a centre. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>The power of the church belonged to the king, and, +if to the king, to his ministers and his judges. Hence +certain crimes that had been under the control of the +church fell under the jurisdiction of the king's courts.<a name="FNanchor_31-1_56" id="FNanchor_31-1_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_31-1_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> +In a more special way the same change came about +through the attack of the privy council upon the conjurers. +What had hitherto been a comparatively insignificant +offence now became a crime against the state +and was so dealt with.</p> + +<p>The change, of course, was not sudden. It was not +accomplished in a year, nor in a decade. It was going +on throughout the first half of Elizabeth's reign. By +the beginning of the eighties the church control was +disappearing. After 1585 the state had practically exclusive +jurisdiction.<a name="FNanchor_31-2_57" id="FNanchor_31-2_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_31-2_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + +<p>We have now finished the attempt to trace the beginning +of the definite movement against witchcraft in +England. What witchcraft was, what it became, how +it was to be distinguished from sorcery—these are questions +that we have tried to answer very briefly. We +have dealt in a cursory way with a series of cases extending +from Anglo-Saxon days down to the fifteenth +century in order to show how unfixed was the matter +of jurisdiction. We have sought also to explain how +Continental opinion was introduced into England +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>through Jewel and other Marian exiles, to show what +independent forces were operating in England, and to +exhibit the growing influence of the charmers and +their relation to the development of witchcraft; and +lastly we have aimed to prove that the special danger +to the queen had no little part in creating the crusade +against witches. These are conclusions of some moment +and a caution must be inserted. We have been +treating of a period where facts are few and information +fragmentary. Under such circumstances conclusions +can only be tentative. Perhaps the most that +can be said of them is that they are suggestions.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2-1_1" id="Footnote_2-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Benjamin Thorpe, <i>Ancient Laws and Institutes of England</i> (London, +1840), I, 41; Liebermann, <i>Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen</i> (Halle, 1906), +and passages cited in his <i>Wörterbuch</i> under <i>wiccan</i>, <i>wiccacræft</i>; Thomas +Wright, ed., <i>A Contemporary Narrative of the Proceedings against Dame +Alice Kyteler</i> (Camden Soc., London, 1843), introd., i-iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3-1_2" id="Footnote_3-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> George L. Burr, "The Literature of Witchcraft," printed in <i>Papers +of the Am. Hist. Assoc.</i>, IV (New York, 1890), 244.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3-2_3" id="Footnote_3-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Henry C. Lea, <i>History of the Inquisition in Spain</i> (New York, 1906-1907), +IV, 207; <i>cf.</i> his <i>History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages</i> +(New York, 1888), III, chs. VI, VII. The most elaborate study of the +rise of the delusion is that by J. Hansen, <i>Zauberwahn, Inquisition und +Hexenprozess im Mittelalter</i> (Cologne, 1900).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4-1_4" id="Footnote_4-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4-1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Lea, <i>Inquisition in Spain</i>, IV, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6-1_5" id="Footnote_6-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Pollock and Maitland, <i>History of English Law</i> (2d ed., Cambridge, +1898), II, 554.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6-2_6" id="Footnote_6-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> See also Wright, ed., <i>Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler</i>, +introd., ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7-1_7" id="Footnote_7-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, x. Lincoln, not Norwich, as Wright's text (followed by Pollock +and Maitland) has it. See the royal letter itself printed in his +footnote, and <i>cf.</i> Rymer's <i>Foedera</i> (under date of 2 Jan. 1406) and the +<i>Calendar of the Patent Rolls</i> (Henry IV, vol. III, p. 112). The bishop +was Philip Repington, late the King's chaplain and confessor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7-2_8" id="Footnote_7-2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7-2_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> L. O. Pike, <i>History of Crime in England</i> (London, 1873), I, 355-356.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8-1_9" id="Footnote_8-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> Sir Harris Nicolas, <i>Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy +Council</i> (London, 1834-1837). IV, 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8-2_10" id="Footnote_8-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II</i>, etc., edited by J. S. +Davies (Camden Soc., London, 1856), 57-60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9-1_11" id="Footnote_9-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Ramsay, Lancaster and York</i> (Oxford, 1892), II, 31-35; Wright, ed., +<i>Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler</i>, introd., xv-xvi, quoting the +Chronicle of London; K. H. Vickers, <i>Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester</i> +(London, 1907), 269-279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9-2_12" id="Footnote_9-2_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9-2_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Wright, ed., <i>op. cit.</i>, introd., xvi-xvii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9-3_13" id="Footnote_9-3_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9-3_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> James Gairdner, <i>Life and Reign of Richard III</i> (2d ed., London, +1879), 81-89. Jane Shore was finally tried before the court of the Bishop +of London.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10-1_14" id="Footnote_10-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Sir J. F. Stephen, <i>History of the Criminal Law of England</i> (London, +1883), II, 410, gives five instances from Archdeacon Hale's <i>Ecclesiastical +Precedents</i>; see extracts from Lincoln Episcopal Visitations in <i>Archæologia</i> +(Soc. of Antiquaries, London), XLVIII, 254-255, 262; see also +articles of visitation, etc., for 1547 and 1559 in David Wilkins, <i>Concilia +Magnae Britanniae</i> (London, 1737), IV, 25, 186, 190.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10-2_15" id="Footnote_10-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> An earlier statute had mentioned sorcery and witchcraft in connection +with medical practitioners. The "Act concerning Phesicions and Surgeons" +of 3 Henry VIII, ch. XI, was aimed against quacks. "Forasmoche +as the science and connyng of Physyke and Surgerie to the perfecte +knowlege wherof bee requisite bothe grete lernyng and ripe experience +ys daily ... exercised by a grete multitude of ignoraunt +persones ... soofarfurth that common Artificers as Smythes Wevers +and Women boldely and custumably take upon theim grete curis and +thyngys of great difficultie In the which they partely use socery and +which crafte [<i>sic</i>] partely applie such medicyne unto the disease as be +verey noyous," it was required that every candidate to practice medicine +should be examined by the bishop of the diocese (in London by either +the bishop or the Dean of St. Paul's).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11-1_16" id="Footnote_11-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Stephen, <i>History of Criminal Law</i>, II, 431, says of this act: "Hutchinson +suggests that this act, which was passed two years after the act +of the Six Articles, was intended as a 'hank upon the reformers,' that +the part of it to which importance was attached was the pulling down of +crosses, which, it seems, was supposed to be practised in connection with +magic. Hutchinson adds that the act was never put into execution +either against witches or reformers. The act was certainly passed during +that period of Henry's reign when he was inclining in the Roman Catholic +direction." The part of the act to which Hutchinson refers reads +as follows: "And for execucion of their saide falce devyses and practises +have made or caused to be made dyvers Images and pictures of men, +women, childrene, Angelles or develles, beastes or fowles, ... and +gyving faithe and credit to suche fantasticall practises have dygged up +and pulled downe an infinite nombre of Crosses within this Realme."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12-1_17" id="Footnote_12-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary History</i> (London, 1751-1762), III, 229.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12-2_18" id="Footnote_12-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13-1_19" id="Footnote_13-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Autobiography of Edward Underhill</i> (in <i>Narratives of the Days of +the Reformation</i>, Camden Soc., London, 1859), 172-175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14-1_20" id="Footnote_14-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14-1_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The measure in fact reached the engrossing stage in the Commons. +Both houses, however, adjourned early in April and left it unpassed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15-1_21" id="Footnote_15-1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15-1_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Several of the bishops who were appointed on Elizabeth's accession +had travelled in South Germany and Switzerland during the Marian +period and had the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the propaganda +in these parts against witches. Thomas Bentham, who was to be +bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, had retired from England to Zurich +and had afterwards been preacher to the exiles at Basel. John Parkhurst, +appointed bishop of Norwich, had settled in Zurich on Mary's accession. +John Scory, appointed bishop of Hereford, had served as chaplain to the +exiles in Geneva. Richard Cox, appointed bishop of Ely, had visited +Frankfort and Strassburg. Edmund Grindall, who was to be the new +bishop of London, had, during his exile, visited Strassburg, Speier, and +Frankfort. Miles Coverdale, who had been bishop of Exeter but who +was not reappointed, had been in Geneva in the course of his exile. +There were many other churchmen of less importance who at one time or +another during the Marian period visited Zurich. See Bullinger's +<i>Diarium</i> (Basel, 1904) and Pellican's <i>Chronikon</i> (Basel, 1877), <i>passim</i>, +as also Theodor Vetter, <i>Relations between England and Zurich during +the Reformation</i> (London, 1904). At Strassburg the persecution raged +somewhat later; but how thoroughly Bucer and his colleagues approved +and urged it is clear from a letter of advice addressed by them in 1538 +to their fellow pastor Schwebel, of Zweibrücken (printed as No. 88 in +the <i>Centuria Epistolarum</i> appended to Schwebel's <i>Scripta Theologica</i>, +Zweibrücken, 1605). That Bucer while in England (1549-1551) found +also occasion to utter these views can hardly be doubted. These details +I owe to Professor Burr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16-1_22" id="Footnote_16-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Various dates have been assigned for Jewel's sermon, but it can be +determined approximately from a passage in the discourse. In the +course of the sermon he remarked: "I would wish that once again, as +time should serve, there might be had a quiet and sober disputation, that +each part might be required to shew their grounds without self will and +without affection, not to maintain or breed contention, ... but only +that the truth may be known.... For, at the last disputation that should +have been, you know which party gave over and would not meddle." +This is clearly an allusion to the Westminster disputation of the last of +March, 1559; see John Strype, <i>Annals of the Reformation</i> (London, 1709-1731; +Oxford, 1824), ed. of 1824, I, pt. i, 128. The sermon therefore +was preached after that disputation. It may be further inferred that it +was preached before Jewel's controversy with Cole in March, 1560. The +words, "For at the last disputation ... you know which party gave +over and would not meddle," were hardly written after Cole accepted +Jewel's challenge. It was on the second Sunday before Easter (March +17), 1560, that Jewel delivered at court the discourse in which he challenged +dispute on four points of church doctrine. On the next day +Henry Cole addressed him a letter in which he asked him why he "yesterday +in the Court and at all other times at Paul's Cross" offered rather +to "dispute in these four points than in the chief matters that lie in +question betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants." In replying +to Cole on the 20th of March Jewel wrote that he stood only upon the +negative and again mentioned his offer. On the 31st of March he +repeated his challenge upon the four points, and upon this occasion went +very much into detail in supporting them. Now, in the sermon which +we are trying to date, the sermon in which allusion is made to the prevalence +of witches, the four points are briefly named. It may be reasonably +conjectured that this sermon anticipated the elaboration of the four +points as well as the challenging sermon of March 17. It is as certain +that it was delivered after Jewel's return to London from his visitation +in the west country. On November 2, 1559, he wrote to Peter Martyr: +"I have at last returned to London, with a body worn out by a most +fatiguing journey." See <i>Zurich Letters</i>, I (Parker Soc., Cambridge, +1842), 44. It is interesting and significant that he adds: "We found in +all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people +dreamed that Christ had been pierced, and I know not what small fragments +of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses +had everywhere become enormous." Jewel was consecrated Bishop of +Salisbury in the following January, having been nominated in the summer +of 1559 just before his western visitation. The sermon in which he alluded +to witches may have been preached at any time after he returned +from the west, November 2, and before March 17. It would be entirely +natural that in a court sermon delivered by the newly appointed bishop +of Salisbury the prevalence of witchcraft should be mentioned. It does +not seem a rash guess that the sermon was preached soon after his +return, perhaps in December, when the impression of what he had seen +in the west was still fresh in his memory. But it is not necessary to make +this supposition. Though the discourse was delivered some time after +March 15, 1559, when the first bill "against Conjurations, Prophecies, +etc.," was brought before the Commons (see <i>Journal of the House of Commons</i>, +I, 57), it is not unreasonable to believe that there was some connection +between the discourse and the fortunes of this bill. That connection +seems the more probable on a careful reading of the Commons +Journals for the first sessions of Elizabeth's Parliament. It is evident that +the Elizabethan legislators were working in close cooperation with the +ecclesiastical authorities. Jewel's sermon may be found in his <i>Works</i> +(ed. for the Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1845-1850), II, 1025-1034. (For +the correspondence with Cole see I, 26 ff.) +</p><p> +For assistance in dating this sermon the writer wishes to express his +special obligation to Professor Burr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17-1_23" id="Footnote_17-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Strype, <i>Annals of the Reformation</i>, I, pt. i, 11. He may, indeed, +mean to ascribe it, not to the sermon, but to the evils alleged by the +sermon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18-1_24" id="Footnote_18-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18-1_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> In the contemporary account entitled <i>A True and just Recorde of +the Information, Examination, and Confession of all the Witches taken +at St. Oses.... Written ... by W. W.</i> (1582), next leaf after +B 5, we read: "there is a man of great cunning and knowledge come +over lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, which hath advertised her what +a companie and number of witches be within Englande." This probably +refers to Jewel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18-2_25" id="Footnote_18-2_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18-2_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, B 5 verso: "I and other of her Justices have received commission +for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites." +This was written later, but the event is referred to as following what +must have been Bishop Jewel's sermon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19-1_26" id="Footnote_19-1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19-1_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Thomas Wright, <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i> (ed. of N. Y., 1852), +126 ff.; see also his <i>Elizabeth and her Times</i> (London, 1838), I, 457, +letter of Shrewsbury to Burghley.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20-1_27" id="Footnote_20-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Wright, <i>Narratives</i>, 130 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20-2_28" id="Footnote_20-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20-3_29" id="Footnote_20-3_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20-3_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> See Reginald Scot, <i>The Discoverie of Witchcraft</i> (London, 1584; +reprinted, Brinsley Nicholson, ed., London, 1886), 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-1_30" id="Footnote_21-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> A very typical instance was that in Kent in 1597, see <i>Archæologia +Cantiana</i> (Kent Archæological Soc., London), XXVI, 21. Several good +instances are given in the <i>Hertfordshire County Session Rolls</i> (compiled +by W. J. Hardy, London, 1905), I; see also J. Raine, ed., <i>Depositions +respecting the Rebellion of 1569, Witchcraft, and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings +from the Court of Durham</i> (Surtees Soc., London, 1845), 99, +100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-2_31" id="Footnote_21-2_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-2_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> J. Raine, ed., <i>Injunctions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings of +Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham</i> (Surtees Soc., London, 1850), 18; +H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, <i>History of Shrewsbury</i> (London, 1825), +II, 364, art. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-3_32" id="Footnote_21-3_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-3_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Arch. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-4_33" id="Footnote_21-4_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-4_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Hertfordshire Co. Sess. Rolls</i>, I, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-5_34" id="Footnote_21-5_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-5_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See <i>Depositions ... from the Court of Durham</i>, 99; <i>Arch. Cant.</i>, +XXVI, 21; W. H. Hale, <i>Precedents</i>, etc. (London, 1847), 148, 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21-6_35" id="Footnote_21-6_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21-6_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 163; <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, ed. by J. C. Jeaffreson +(London, 1892), I, 84, 94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22-1_36" id="Footnote_22-1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22-1_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> For an instance of how a "wise woman" feared this very thing, +see Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23-1_37" id="Footnote_23-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23-1_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> See <i>Witches taken at St. Oses</i>, E; also Dr. Barrow's opinion in the +pamphlet entitled <i>The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three +Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed at the last assizes +at Huntingdon....</i> (London, 1593).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24-1_38" id="Footnote_24-1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24-1_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Folk Lore Soc. Journal</i>, II, 157-158, where this story is quoted +from a work by "Wm. Clouues, Mayster in Chirurgery," published in +1588. He only professed to have "reade" of it, so that it is perhaps just +a pleasant tradition. If it is nothing more than that, it is at least an +interesting evidence of opinion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25-1_39" id="Footnote_25-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Strype, <i>Annals of the Reformation</i>, I, pt. i, 9-10; <i>Dictionary of +National Biography</i>, article on Anthony Fortescue, by G. K. Fortescue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25-2_40" id="Footnote_25-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25-2_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Strype, <i>op. cit.</i>, I, pt. i, 546, 555-558; also Wright, <i>Elizabeth and her +Times</i>, I, 121, where a letter from Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith is printed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26-1_41" id="Footnote_26-1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26-1_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The interest which the privy council showed in sorcery and witchcraft +during the earlier part of the reign is indicated in the following +references: <i>Acts of the Privy Council</i>, new series, VII, 6, 22, 200-201; +X, 220, 382; XI, 22, 36, 292, 370-371, 427; XII, 21-22, 23, 26, 29, 34, +102, 251; <i>Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-1580</i>, 137, 142; <i>id.</i>, +<i>1581-1590</i>, 29, 220, 246-247; <i>id.</i>, <i>Add. 1580-1625</i>, 120-121; see also John +Strype, <i>Life of Sir Thomas Smith</i> (London, 1698; Oxford, 1820), ed. +of 1820, 127-129. The case mentioned in <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1581-1590</i>, 29, +was probably a result of the activity of the privy council. The case in <i>id.</i>, +<i>Add., 1580-1625</i>, 120-121, is an instance of where the accused was suspected +of both witchcraft and "high treason touching the supremacy." +Nearly all of the above mentioned references to the activity of the privy +council refer to the first half of the reign and a goodly proportion to the +years 1578-1582.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26-2_42" id="Footnote_26-2_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26-2_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., XI, 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27-1_43" id="Footnote_27-1_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27-1_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Strype, <i>Sir Thomas Smith</i>, 127-129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28-1_44" id="Footnote_28-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible acts +committed by Elizabeth Stile</i>, etc. (for full title see appendix). This +pamphlet is in black letter. Its account is confirmed by the reference +in <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., XI, 22. See also Scot, <i>Discoverie</i>, 51, 543.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28-2_45" id="Footnote_28-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> An aged widow had been committed to gaol on the testimony of +her neighbors that she was "lewde, malitious, and hurtful to the people." +An ostler, after he had refused to give her relief, had suffered a pain. +So far as the account goes, this was the sum of the evidence against the +woman. Unhappily she waited not on the order of her trial but made +voluble confession and implicated five others, three of whom were without +doubt professional enchanters. She had met, she said, with Mother +Dutten, Mother Devell, and Mother Margaret, and "concluded several +hainous and vilanous practices." The deaths of five persons whom she +named were the outcome of their concerted plans. For the death of +a sixth she avowed entire responsibility. This amazing confession may +have been suggested to her piece by piece, but it was received at full +value. That she included others in her guilt was perhaps because she +responded to the evident interest aroused by such additions, or more +likely because she had grudges unsatisfied. The women were friendless, +three of the four were partially dependent upon alms, there was no +one to come to their help, and they were convicted. The man that had +been arraigned, a "charmer," seems to have gone free.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-1_46" id="Footnote_29-1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-1_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Injunctions ... of ... Bishop of Durham</i>, 18, 84, 99; Visitations +of Canterbury, in <i>Arch. Cant.</i>, XXVI; Hale, <i>Precedents, 1475-1640</i>, +147, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-2_47" id="Footnote_29-2_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-2_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Arch. Cant., XXVI, <i>passim</i>; Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 147, 148, 163, 185; Mrs. +Lynn Linton, <i>Witch Stories</i> (London, 1861; new ed., 1883), 144.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-3_48" id="Footnote_29-3_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-3_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> See Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 148, 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-4_49" id="Footnote_29-4_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-4_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 148; <i>Depositions ... from the Court of Durham</i>, +99; <i>Arch. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-5_50" id="Footnote_29-5_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-5_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Hale, <i>op. cit.</i>, 148, 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29-6_51" id="Footnote_29-6_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29-6_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30-1_52" id="Footnote_30-1_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30-1_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Denham Tracts</i> (Folk Lore Soc., London), II, 332; John Sykes, +<i>Local Record ... of Remarkable Events ... in Northumberland, Durham, +...</i> etc. (2d ed., Newcastle, 1833-1852), I, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30-2_53" id="Footnote_30-2_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30-2_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> See, for example, <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., VII, 32 (1558).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30-3_54" id="Footnote_30-3_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30-3_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1547-1580</i>, 173. Instance where the Bishop of London +seems to have examined a case and turned it over to the privy +council.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30-4_55" id="Footnote_30-4_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30-4_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Rachel Pinder and Agnes Bridges, who pretended to be possessed by +the Devil, were examined before the "person of St. Margarets in Lothberry," +and the Mayor of London, as well as some justices of the peace. +They later made confession before the Archbishop of Canterbury and +some justices of the peace. See the black letter pamphlet, <i>The discloysing +of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within +the Citie of London</i> [1574].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31-1_56" id="Footnote_31-1_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31-1_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Francis Coxe came before the queen rather than the church. He +narrates his experiences in <i>A short treatise declaringe the detestable +wickednesse of magicall sciences, ...</i> (1561). Yet John Walsh, +a man with a similar record, came before the commissary of the Bishop +of Exeter. See <i>The Examination of John Walsh before Master Thomas +Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop +of Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and +Sorcerye, in the presence of divers gentlemen and others, the XX of +August, 1566</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31-2_57" id="Footnote_31-2_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31-2_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> We say "practically," because instances of church jurisdiction come +to light now and again throughout the seventeenth century.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Witchcraft under Elizabeth.</h3> + + +<p>The year 1566 is hardly less interesting in the history<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +of English witchcraft than 1563. It has been seen that +the new statute passed in 1563 was the beginning of a +vigorous prosecution by the state of the detested agents +of the evil one. In 1566 occurred the first important +trial known to us in the new period. That trial deserves +note not only on its own account, but because it +was recorded in the first of the long series of witch +chap-books—if we may so call them. A very large +proportion of our information about the execution of +the witches is derived from these crude pamphlets, +briefly recounting the trials. The witch chap-book was a +distinct species. In the days when the chronicles were +the only newspapers it was what is now the "extra," +brought out to catch the public before the sensation +had lost its flavor. It was of course a partisan document, +usually a vindication of the worthy judge who +had condemned the guilty, with some moral and religious +considerations by the respectable and righteous +author. A terribly serious bit of history it was that he +had to tell and he told it grimly and without pity. Such +comedy as lights up the gloomy black-letter pages was +quite unintentional. He told a story too that was full +of details trivial enough in themselves, but details that +give many glimpses into the every-day life of the lower +classes in town and country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pamphlet of 1566 was brief and compact of information. +It was entitled <i>The examination and confession +of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie +of Essex before the Quenes Maiesties Judges the +XXVI daye of July anno 1566</i>. The trial there recorded +is one that presents some of the most curious +and inexplicable features in the annals of English +witchcraft. The personnel of the "size" court is mysterious. +At the first examination "Doctor Cole" and +"Master Foscue" were present. Both men are easily +identified. Doctor Cole was the Reverend Thomas +Cole, who had held several places in Essex and had in +1564 been presented to the rectory of Stanford Rivers, +about ten miles from Chelmsford. Master Foscue was +unquestionably Sir John Fortescue, later Chancellor of +the Exchequer, and at this time keeper of the great +wardrobe. On the second examination Sir Gilbert Gerard, +the queen's attorney, and John Southcote, justice +of the queen's bench, were present. Why Southcote +should be present is perfectly clear. It is not so easy +to understand about the others. Was the attorney-general +acting as presiding officer, or was he conducting +the prosecution? The latter hypothesis is of course +more consistent with his position. But what were the +rector of Stanford Rivers and the keeper of the great +wardrobe doing there? Had Doctor Cole been appointed +in recognition of the claims of the church? And +the keeper of the wardrobe, what was the part that he +played? One cannot easily escape the conclusion that +the case was deemed one of unusual significance. Perhaps +the privy council had heard of something that +alarmed it and had delegated these four men, all known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +at Elizabeth's court, to examine into the matter in connection +with the assizes.</p> + +<p>The examinations themselves present features of +more interest to the psychologist than to the historical +student. Yet they have some importance in the understanding +of witchcraft as a social phenomenon. Elizabeth +Francis, when examined, confessed with readiness +to various "vilanies." From her grandmother she said +she had as a child received a white spotted cat, named +Sathan, whom she had fed, and who gave her what she +asked for. "She desired to have one Andrew Byles +to her husband, which was a man of some welth, and +the cat dyd promyse she shold." But the promise +proved illusory. The man left her without marriage +and then she "willed Sathan ... to touch his body, +whych he forthewith dyd, whereof he died." Once +again she importuned Satan for a husband. This time +she gained one "not so rich as the other." She bore a +daughter to him, but the marriage was an unhappy one. +"They lived not so quietly as she desyred, beinge stirred +to much unquietnes and moved to swearing and cursinge." +Thereupon she employed the spirit to kill her +child and to lame her husband. After keeping the cat +fifteen years she turned it over to Mother Waterhouse, +"a pore woman."<a name="FNanchor_35-1_1" id="FNanchor_35-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_35-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Mother Waterhouse was now examined. She had +received the cat and kept it "a great while in woll in +a pot." She had then turned it into a toad. She had +used it to kill geese, hogs, and cattle of her neighbors. +At length she had employed it to kill a neighbor whom +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>she disliked, and finally her own husband. The woman's +eighteen-year-old daughter, Joan, was now called +to the stand and confirmed the fact that her mother +kept a toad. She herself had one day been refused a +piece of bread and cheese by a neighbor's child and had +invoked the toad's help. The toad promised to assist +her if she would surrender her soul. She did so. Then +the toad haunted the neighbor's girl in the form of a dog +with horns. The mother was again called to the stand +and repeated the curious story told by her daughter.</p> + +<p>Now the neighbor's child, Agnes Brown, was brought +in to testify. Her story tallied in some of its details +with that of the two Waterhouse women; she had been +haunted by the horned dog, and she added certain descriptions +of its conduct that revealed good play of +childish imagination.<a name="FNanchor_36-1_2" id="FNanchor_36-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_36-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>The attorney put some questions, but rather to lead +on the witnesses than to entangle them. He succeeded, +however, in creating a violent altercation between the +Waterhouses on the one hand, and Agnes Brown on the +other, over trifling matters of detail.<a name="FNanchor_36-2_3" id="FNanchor_36-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_36-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> At length he offered +to release Mother Waterhouse if she would make +the spirit appear in the court.<a name="FNanchor_36-3_4" id="FNanchor_36-3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_36-3_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The offer was waived. +The attorney then asked, "When dyd thye Cat suck +of thy bloud?" "Never," said she. He commanded +the jailer to lift up the "kercher" on the woman's +head. He did so and the spots on her face and nose +where she had pricked herself for the evil spirit were +exposed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p><p>The jury retired. Two days later Agnes Waterhouse +suffered the penalty of the law, not however until she +had added to her confessions.<a name="FNanchor_37-1_5" id="FNanchor_37-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_37-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>The case is a baffling one. We can be quite sure that +the pamphlet account is incomplete. One would like +to know more about the substance of fact behind this +evidence. Did the parties that were said to have been +killed by witchcraft really die at the times specified? +Either the facts of their deaths were well known in the +community and were fitted with great cleverness into +the story Mother Waterhouse told, or the jurors and +the judges neglected the first principles of common +sense and failed to inquire about the facts.<a name="FNanchor_37-2_6" id="FNanchor_37-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_37-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The questions +asked by the queen's attorney reveal hardly more +than an unintelligent curiosity to know the rest of the +story. He shows just one saving glint of skepticism. +He offered to release Mother Waterhouse if she would +materialize her spirit.</p> + +<p>Mother Waterhouse was her own worst enemy. Her +own testimony was the principal evidence presented +against her, and yet she denied guilt on one particular +upon which the attorney-general had interrogated her. +This might lead one to suppose that her answers were +the haphazard replies of a half-witted woman. But the +supposition is by no means consistent with the very +definite and clear-cut nature of her testimony. It is +useless to try to unravel the tangles of the case. It is +possible that under some sort of duress—although there +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>is no evidence of this—she had deliberately concocted +a story to fit those of Elizabeth Francis and Agnes +Brown, and that her daughter, hearing her mother's +narrative in court—a very possible thing in that day—had +fitted hers into it. It is conceivable too that Mother +Waterhouse had yielded merely to the wish to amaze +her listeners. It is a more probable supposition that +the questions asked of her by the judge were based upon +the accusations already made by Agnes Brown and that +they suggested to her the main outlines of her narrative.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Francis, who had been the first accused and +who had accused Mother Waterhouse, escaped. +Whether it was because she had turned state's evidence +or because she had influential friends in the community, +we do not know. It is possible that the judges recognized +that her confession was unsupported by the testimony +of other witnesses. Such a supposition, however, +credits the court with keener discrimination than seems +ever to have been exhibited in such cases in the sixteenth +century.<a name="FNanchor_38-1_7" id="FNanchor_38-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_38-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>But, though Elizabeth Francis had escaped, her reputation +as a dangerous woman in the community was +fixed. Thirteen years later she was again put on trial +before the itinerant justices. This brings us to the +second trial of witches at Chelmsford in 1579. Mistress +Francis's examination elicited less than in the first trial. +She had cursed a woman "and badde a mischief to +light uppon her." The woman, she understood, was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>grievously pained. She followed the course that she +had taken before and began to accuse others. We +know very little as to the outcome. At least one of the +women accused went free because "manslaughter or +murder was not objected against her."<a name="FNanchor_39-1_8" id="FNanchor_39-1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_39-1_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Three women, +however, were condemned and executed. One of them +was almost certainly Elleine Smith, daughter of a woman +hanged as a witch,—another illustration of the persistence +of suspicion against the members of a family.</p> + +<p>The Chelmsford affair of 1579<a name="FNanchor_39-2_9" id="FNanchor_39-2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_39-2_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> was not unlike that +of 1566. There were the same tales of spirits that assumed +animal forms. The young son of Elleine Smith +declared that his mother kept three spirits, Great Dick +in a wicker bottle, Little Dick in a leathern bottle, and +Willet in a wool-pack. Goodwife Webb saw "a thyng +like a black Dogge goe out of her doore." But the general +character of the testimony in the second trial bore +no relation to that in the first. There was no agreement +of the different witnesses. The evidence was haphazard. +The witch and another woman had a falling out—fallings +out were very common. Next day the woman +was taken ill. This was the sort of unimpeachable testimony +that was to be accepted for a century yet. In +the affair of 1566 the judges had made some attempt at +quizzing the witnesses, but in 1579 all testimony was +seemingly rated at par.<a name="FNanchor_39-3_10" id="FNanchor_39-3_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_39-3_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In both instances the proof +rested mainly upon confession. Every woman executed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>had made confessions of guilt. This of course was +deemed sufficient. Nevertheless the courts were beginning +to introduce other methods of proving the accused +guilty. The marks on Agnes Waterhouse had been uncovered +at the request of the attorney-general; and at +her execution she had been questioned about her ability +to say the Lord's Prayer and other parts of the service. +Neither of these matters was emphasized, but the mention +of them proves that notions were already current +that were later to have great vogue.</p> + +<p>The Chelmsford cases find their greatest significance, +however, not as illustrations of the use and abuse of evidence, +but because they exemplify the continuity of the +witch movement. That continuity finds further illustration +in the fact that there was a third alarm at +Chelmsford in 1589, which resulted in three more executions. +But in this case the women involved seem, +so far as we know, to have had no connection with the +earlier cases. The fate of Elizabeth Francis and that +of Elleine Smith are more instructive as proof of the +long-standing nature of a community suspicion. Elleine +could not escape her mother's reputation nor Elizabeth +her own.</p> + +<p>Both these women seem to have been of low character +at any rate. Elizabeth had admitted illicit amours, +and Elleine may very well have been guilty on the same +count.<a name="FNanchor_40-1_11" id="FNanchor_40-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_40-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> All of the women involved in the two trials +were in circumstances of wretched poverty; most, if +not all, of them were dependent upon begging and the +poor relief for support.<a name="FNanchor_40-2_12" id="FNanchor_40-2_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_40-2_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> +<p>It is easy to imagine the excitement in Essex that +these trials must have produced. The accused had represented +a wide territory in the county. The women +had been fetched to Chelmsford from towns as far +apart as Hatfield-Peverel and Maldon. It is not remarkable +that three years later than the affair of 1579 +there should have been another outbreak in the county, +this time in a more aggravated form. St. Oses, or St. +Osyth's, to the northeast of Chelmsford, was to be the +scene of the most remarkable affair of its kind in Elizabethan +times. The alarm began with the formulation of +charges against a woman of the community. Ursley +Kemp was a poor woman of doubtful reputation. She +rendered miscellaneous services to her neighbors. She +acted as midwife, nursed children, and added to her +income by "unwitching" the diseased. Like other +women of the sort, she was looked upon with suspicion. +Hence, when she had been refused the nursing of the +child of Grace Thurlow, a servant of that Mr. Darcy +who was later to try her, and when the child soon afterward +fell out of its cradle and broke its neck, the mother +suspected Ursley of witchcraft. Nevertheless she did +not refuse her help when she "began to have a lameness +in her bones." Ursley promised to unwitch her and +seemingly kept her word, for the lameness disappeared. +Then it was that the nurse-woman asked for the twelve-pence +she had been promised and was refused. Grace +pleaded that she was a "poore and needie woman." +Ursley became angry and threatened to be even with +her. The lameness reappeared and Grace Thurlow +was thoroughly convinced that Ursley was to blame. +When the case was carried before the justices of the +peace, the accused woman denied that she was guilty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +of anything more than unwitching the afflicted. That +she had learned, she said, ten or more years ago from a +woman now deceased. She was committed to the assizes, +and Justice Brian Darcy, whose servant Grace +Thurlow had started the trouble, took the case in hand. +He examined her eight-year-old "base son," who gave +damning evidence against his mother. She fed four +imps, Tyffin, Tittey, Piggen, and Jacket. The boy's +testimony and the judge's promise that if she would +confess the truth she "would have favour," seemed +to break down the woman's resolution. "Bursting out +with weeping she fell upon her knees and confessed +that she had four spirits." Two of them she had used +for laming, two for killing. Not only the details of her +son's evidence, but all the earlier charges, she confirmed +step by step, first in private confessions to the judge +and then publicly at the court sessions. The woman's +stories tallied with those of all her accusers<a name="FNanchor_42-1_13" id="FNanchor_42-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_42-1_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and displayed +no little play of imagination in the orientation of +details.<a name="FNanchor_42-2_14" id="FNanchor_42-2_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_42-2_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Not content with thus entangling herself in a +fearful web of crime, she went on to point out other +women guilty of similar witchcrafts. Four of those +whom she named were haled before the justice. Elizabeth +Bennett, who spun wool for a cloth-maker, was +one of those most vehemently accused, but she denied +knowledge of any kind of witchcraft. It had been +charged against her that she kept some wool hidden in a +pot under some stones in her house. She denied at +first the possession of this potent and malignant charm; +but, influenced by the gentle urgings of Justice Darcy,<a name="FNanchor_42-3_15" id="FNanchor_42-3_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_42-3_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>she gave way, as Ursley Kemp had done, and, breaking +all restraint, poured forth wild stories of devilish crimes +committed through the assistance of her imps.</p> + +<p>But why should we trace out the confessions, charges, +and counter-charges that followed? The stories that +were poured forth continued to involve a widening +group until sixteen persons were under accusation of +the most awful crimes, committed by demoniacal +agency. As at Chelmsford, they were the dregs of the +lower classes, women with illegitimate children, some +of them dependent upon public support. It will be +seen that in some respects the panic bore a likeness to +those that had preceded. The spirits, which took extraordinary +and bizarre forms, were the offspring of the +same perverted imaginations, but they had assumed new +shapes. Ursley Kemp kept a white lamb, a little gray +cat, a black cat, and a black toad. There were spirits +of every sort, "two little thyngs like horses, one white, +the other black'"; six "spirits like cowes ... as +big as rattles"; spirits masquerading as blackbirds. +One spirit strangely enough remained invisible. It will +be observed by the reader that the spirits almost fitted +into a color scheme. Very vivid colors were those +preferred in their spirits by these St. Oses women. +The reader can see, too, that the confessions showed +the influence of the great cat tradition.</p> + +<p>We have seen the readiness with which the deluded +women made confession. Some of the confessions +were poured forth as from souls long surcharged with +guilt. But not all of them came in this way. Margerie +Sammon, who had testified against one of her neighbors, +was finally herself caught in the web of accusation +in which a sister had also been involved. She was ac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>cused +by her sister. "I defie thee," she answered, +"though thou art my sister." But her sister drew her +aside and "whyspered her in the eare," after which, +with "great submission and many teares," she made +a voluble confession. One wonders about that whispered +consultation. Had her sister perhaps suggested +that the justice was offering mercy to those who confessed? +For Justice Darcy was very liberal with his +promises of mercy and absolutely unscrupulous about +breaking them.<a name="FNanchor_44-1_16" id="FNanchor_44-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_44-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> It is gratifying to be able to record +that there was yet a remnant left who confessed nothing +at all and stood stubborn to the last. One of them +was Margaret Grevel, who denied the accusations +against her. She "saith that shee herselfe hath lost +severall bruings and bakings of bread, and also swine, +but she never did complaine thereof: saying that shee +wished her gere were at a stay and then shee cared +not whether shee were hanged or burnt or what did +become of her." Annis Herd was another who stuck +to her innocence. She could recall various incidents +mentioned by her accusers; it was true that she had +talked to Andrew West about getting a pig, it was true +that she had seen Mr. Harrison at his parsonage gathering +plums and had asked for some and been refused. +But she denied that she had any imps or that she had +killed any one.</p> + +<p>The use of evidence in this trial would lead one to +suppose that in England no rules of evidence were +yet in existence. The testimony of children ranging +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>in age from six to nine was eagerly received. No objection +indeed was made to the testimony of a neighbor +who professed to have overheard what he deemed an +incriminating statement. As a matter of fact the remark, +if made, was harmless enough.<a name="FNanchor_45-1_17" id="FNanchor_45-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_45-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Expert evidence +was introduced in a roundabout way by the statement +offered in court that a physician had suspected +that a certain case was witchcraft. Nothing was excluded. +The garrulous women had been give free rein +to pile up their silly accusations against one another. +Not until the trial was nearing its end does it seem to +have occurred to Brian Darcy to warn a woman against +making false charges.</p> + +<p>It will be recalled that in the Chelmsford trials +Mother Waterhouse had been found to have upon her +certain marks, yet little emphasis had been laid upon +them. In the trials of 1582 the proof drawn from these +marks was deemed of the first importance and the +judge appointed juries of women to make examination. +No artist has yet dared to paint the picture of the gloating +female inquisitors grouped around their naked and +trembling victim, a scene that was to be enacted in many +a witch trial. And it is well, for the scene would be too +repellent and brutal for reproduction. In the use of +these specially instituted juries there was no care to get +unbiassed decisions. One of the inquisitors appointed +to examine Cystley Celles had already served as witness +against her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p><p>It is hard to refrain from an indictment of the hopelessly +prejudiced justice who gathered the evidence.<a name="FNanchor_46-1_18" id="FNanchor_46-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_46-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> +To entrap the defendants seems to have been his end. +In the account which he wrote<a name="FNanchor_46-2_19" id="FNanchor_46-2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_46-2_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> he seems to have feared +lest the public should fail to understand how his cleverness +ministered to the conviction of the women.<a name="FNanchor_46-3_20" id="FNanchor_46-3_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_46-3_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>"There is a man," he wrote, "of great cunning and +knowledge come over lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, +which hath advertised her what a companie and number +of witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other +of her Justices have received commission for the apprehending +of as many as are within these limites." No +doubt he hoped to attract royal notice and win favor by +his zeal.</p> + +<p>The Chelmsford affairs and that at St. Oses were the +three remarkable trials of their kind in the first part of +Elizabeth's reign. They furnish some evidence of the +progress of superstition. The procedure in 1582 reveals +considerable advance over that of 1566. The theory of +diabolic agency had been elaborated. The testimony +offered was gaining in complexity and in variety. New +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>proofs of guilt were being introduced as well as new +methods of testing the matter. In the second part of +Elizabeth's reign we have but one trial of unusual interest, +that at Warboys in Huntingdonshire. This, we +shall see, continued the elaboration of the witch procedure. +It was a case that attracted probably more notice +at the time than any other in the sixteenth century. +The accidental fancy of a child and the pronouncement +of a baffled physician were in this instance the originating +causes of the trouble. One of the children of Sir +Robert Throckmorton, head of a prominent family in +Huntingdonshire, was taken ill. It so happened that a +neighbor, by name Alice Samuel, called at the house and +the ailing and nervous child took the notion that the +woman was a witch and cried out against her. "Did you +ever see, sayd the child, one more like a witch then she +is; take off her blacke thrumbd cap, for I cannot abide +to looke on her." Her parents apparently thought +nothing of this at the time. When Dr. Barrow, an eminent +physician of Cambridge, having treated the child +for two of the diseases of children, and without success, +asked the mother and father if any witchcraft were +suspected, he was answered in the negative. The +Throckmortons were by no means quick to harbor a suspicion. +But when two and then three other children in +the family fell ill and began in the same way to designate +Mother Samuel as a witch, the parents were more +willing to heed the hint thrown out by the physician. +The suspected woman was forcibly brought by Gilbert +Pickering, an uncle of the children, into their presence. +The children at once fell upon the ground "strangely +tormented," and insisted upon scratching Mother Samuel's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +hand. Meantime Lady Cromwell<a name="FNanchor_48-1_21" id="FNanchor_48-1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_48-1_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> visited at the +Throckmorton house, and, after an interview with Alice +Samuel, suffered in her dreams from her till at length +she fell ill and died, something over a year later. This +confirmed what had been suspicion. To detail all the +steps taken to prove Mother Samuel guilty is unnecessary. +A degree of caution was used which was remarkable. +Henry Pickering, a relative, and some of +his fellow scholars at Cambridge made an investigation +into the case, but decided with the others that the +woman was guilty. Mother Samuel herself laid the +whole trouble to the children's "wantonness." Again +and again she was urged by the children to confess. +"Such were the heavenly and divine speeches of the +children in their fits to this old woman ... as that if a +man had heard it he would not have thought himself +better edified at ten sermons." The parents pleaded +with her to admit her responsibility for the constantly +recurring sickness of their children, but she denied +bitterly that she was to blame. She was compelled to +live at the Throckmorton house and to be a witness +constantly to the strange behavior of the children. The +poor creature was dragged back and forth, watched and +experimented upon in a dozen ways, until it is little +wonder that she grew ill and spent her nights in groaning. +She was implored to confess and told that all +might yet be well. For a long time she persisted in her +denial, but at length in a moment of weakness, when +the children had come out of their fits at her chance +exhortation to them, she became convinced that she was +guilty and exclaimed, "O sir, I have been the cause +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>of all this trouble to your children." The woman, who +up to this time had shown some spirit, had broken +down. She now confessed that she had given her soul +to the Devil. A clergyman was hastily sent for, who +preached a sermon of repentance, upon which the distracted +woman made a public confession. But on the +next day, after she had been refreshed by sleep and +had been in her own home again, she denied her confession. +The constable now prepared to take the woman +as well as her daughter to the Bishop of Lincoln, and +the frightened creature again made a confession. In +the presence of the bishop she reiterated her story in +detail and gave the names of her spirits. She was put in +gaol at Huntingdon and with her were imprisoned her +daughter Agnes and her husband John Samuel, who +were now accused by the Throckmorton children, and +all three were tried at the assizes in Huntingdon before +Judge Fenner. The facts already narrated were given +in evidence, the seizures of the children at the appearance +of any of the Samuel family<a name="FNanchor_49-1_22" id="FNanchor_49-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_49-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>, the certainty with +which the children could with closed eyes pick Mother +Samuel out of a crowd and scratch her, the confessions +of the crazed creature, all these evidences were given +to the court. But the strongest proof was that given +in the presence of the court. The daughter Agnes +Samuel was charged to repeat, "As I am a witch and +consenting to the death of Lady Cromwell, I charge +thee, come out of her."<a name="FNanchor_49-2_23" id="FNanchor_49-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_49-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> At this charge the children +would at once recover from their fits. But a charge +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>phrased negatively, "As I am no witch," was ineffectual. +And the affirmative charge, when tried by +some other person, had no result. This was deemed +conclusive proof. The woman was beyond doubt guilty. +The same method was applied with equally successful +issue to the father. When he refused to use the words +of the charge he was warned by the judge that he would +endanger his life. He gave way.</p> + +<p>It is needless to say that the grand jury arraigned +all three of the family and that the "jury of life and +death" found them guilty. It needed but a five hours' +trial.<a name="FNanchor_50-1_24" id="FNanchor_50-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_50-1_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> The mother was induced to plead pregnancy as +a delay to execution, but after an examination by a +jury was adjudged not pregnant. The daughter had +been urged to make the same defence, but spiritedly +replied, "It shall never be said that I was both a witch +and a whore." At the execution the mother made another +confession, in which she implicated her husband, +but refused to the end to accuse her daughter.</p> + +<p>From beginning to end it had been the strong against +the weak. Sir Robert Throckmorton, Sir Henry Cromwell, +William Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln, the justices +of the peace, Justice Fenner of the king's court, the Cambridge +scholars, the "Doctor of Divinitie," and two +other clergymen, all were banded together against this +poor but respectable family. In some respects the trial +reminds us of one that was to take place ninety-nine +years later in Massachusetts. The part played by the +children in the two instances was very similar. Mother +Samuel had hit the nail on the head when she said that +the trouble was due to the children's "wantonness." +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>Probably the first child had really suffered from some +slight ailment. The others were imitators eager to gain +notice and pleased with their success; and this fact was +realized by some people at the time. "It had been reported +by some in the county, those that thought themselves +wise, that this Mother Samuel ... was an old +simple woman, and that one might make her by fayre +words confesse what they would." Moreover the tone of +the writer's defense makes it evident that others beside +Mother Samuel laid the action of the Throckmorton +children to "wantonness." And six years later Samuel +Harsnett, chaplain to the Bishop of London and a +man already influential, called the account of the affair +"a very ridiculous booke" and evidently believed the +children guilty of the same pretences as William Somers, +whose confessions of imposture he was relating.<a name="FNanchor_51-1_25" id="FNanchor_51-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_51-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>We have already observed that the Warboys affair +was the only celebrated trial of its sort in the last part +of Elizabeth's reign—that is, from the time of Reginald +Scot to the accession of James I. This does not mean +that the superstition was waning or that the trials were +on the decrease. The records show that the number +of trials was steadily increasing. They were more +widely distributed. London was still the centre of +the belief. Chief-Justice Anderson sent Joan Kerke +to Tyburn and the Middlesex sessions were still occupied +with accusations. The counties adjacent to it +could still claim more than two-thirds of the executions. +But a far wider area was infected with the superstition. +Norfolk in East Anglia, Leicester, Nottingham and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>Derby in the Midlands, and York and Northumberland +in the North were all involved.</p> + +<p>The truth is that there are two tendencies that appear +very clearly towards the last part of Elizabeth's reign. +On the one hand the feeling of the people against +witchcraft was growing in intensity, while on the other +the administration at London was inclined to be more +lenient. Pardons and reprieves were issued to women +already condemned,<a name="FNanchor_52-1_26" id="FNanchor_52-1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_52-1_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> while some attempt was made +to curb popular excitement. The attitude of the queen +towards the celebrated John Dee was an instance in +point. Dee was an eminent alchemist, astrologer, and +spiritualist of his time. He has left a diary which +shows us his half mystic, half scientific pursuits. In +the earlier part of Mary's reign he had been accused of +attempting poison or magic against the queen and had +been imprisoned and examined by the privy council +and by the Star Chamber. At Elizabeth's accession he +had cast the horoscope for her coronation day, and he +was said to have revealed to the queen who were her +enemies at foreign courts. More than once afterwards +Dee was called upon by the queen to render her services +when she was ill or when some mysterious design +against her person was feared. While he dealt with +many curious things, he had consistently refused to meddle +with conjuring. Indeed he had rebuked the conjurer +Hartley and had refused to help the bewitched Margaret +Byrom of Cleworth in Lancashire. Sometime +about 1590 Dee's enemies—and he had many—put in +circulation stories of his success as a conjurer. It was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>the more easy to do, because for a long time he had +been suspected by many of unlawful dealings with +spirits. His position became dangerous. He appealed +to Elizabeth for protection and she gave him assurance +that he might push on with his studies. Throughout +her life the queen continued to stand by Dee,<a name="FNanchor_53-1_27" id="FNanchor_53-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_53-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and it +was not until a new sovereign came to the throne that +he again came into danger. But the moral of the incident +is obvious. The privy council, so nervous about +the conjurers in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, +and the Catholic and Spanish plots, was now resting +easier and refused to be affrighted.</p> + +<p>We have already referred to the pardons issued as one +of the evidences of the more lenient policy of the government. +That policy appeared too in the lessening +rigor of the assize judges. The first half of Elizabeth's +reign had been marked by few acquittals. Nearly half +the cases of which we have record in the second part +resulted in the discharge of the accused. Whether the +judges were taking their cue from the privy council +or whether some of them were feeling the same reaction +against the cruelty of the prosecutions, it is certain +that there was a considerable nullifying of the +force of the belief. We shall see in the chapter on +Reginald Scot that his <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i> was +said to have "affected the magistracy and the clergy." +It is hard to lay one's finger upon influences of this +sort, but we can hardly doubt that there was some connection +between Scot's brave indictment of the witch-triers +and the lessening severity of court verdicts. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>When George Gifford, the non-conformist clergyman +at Maiden, wrote his <i>Dialogue concerning Witches</i>, in +which he earnestly deprecated the conviction of so +many witches, he dedicated the book "to the Right +Worshipful Maister Robert Clarke, one of her Maiesties +Barons of her Highnesse Court of the Exchequer," +and wrote that he had been "delighted to heare and see +the wise and godly course used upon the seate of justice +by your worship, when such have bene arraigned." +Unfortunately there is not much evidence of this kind.</p> + +<p>One other fact must not be overlooked. A large percentage +of the cases that went against the accused were +in towns judicially independent of the assize courts. +At Faversham, at Lynn, at Yarmouth, and at Leicester<a name="FNanchor_54-1_28" id="FNanchor_54-1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_54-1_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +the local municipal authorities were to blame for +the hanging of witches. The regular assize courts had +nothing to do with the matter. The case at Faversham +in Kent was unusual. Joan Cason was indicted for bewitching +to death a three-year-old child. Eight of her +neighbors, seven of them women, "poore people," +testified against her. The woman took up her own +cause with great spirit and exposed the malicious dealings +of her adversaries and also certain controversies +betwixt her and them. "But although she satisfied +the bench," says Holinshed, "and all the jurie touching +hir innocencie ... she ... confessed that a little vermin, +being of colour reddish, of stature lesse than a rat +... did ... haunt her house." She was willing too to +admit illicit relations with one Mason, whose housekeeper +she had been—probably the original cause of her +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>troubles. The jury acquitted her of witchcraft, but +found her guilty of the "invocation of evil spirits," intending +to send her to the pillory. While the mayor +was admonishing her, a lawyer called attention to the +point that the invocation of evil spirits had been made +a felony. The mayor sentenced the woman to execution. +But, "because there was no matter of invocation +given in evidence against hir, ... hir execution was +staied by the space of three daies." Sundry preachers +tried to wring confessions from her, but to no purpose. +Yet she made so godly an end, says the chronicler, that +"manie now lamented hir death which were before hir +utter enimies."<a name="FNanchor_55-1_29" id="FNanchor_55-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_55-1_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The case illustrates vividly the clumsiness +of municipal court procedure. The mayor's +court was unfamiliar with the law and utterly unable +to avert the consequences of its own finding. In the +regular assize courts, Joan Cason would probably have +been sentenced to four public appearances in the +pillory.</p> + +<p>The differences between the first half and the second +half of Elizabeth's reign have not been deemed +wide enough by the writer to justify separate treatment. +The whole reign was a time when the superstition +was gaining ground. Yet in the span of years +from Reginald Scot to the death of Elizabeth there was +enough of reaction to justify a differentiation of statistics. +In both periods, and more particularly in the first, +we may be sure that some of the records have been +lost and that a thorough search of local archives +would reveal some trials of which we have at present +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>no knowledge. It was a time rich in mention of witch +trials, but a time too when but few cases were fully described. +Scot's incidental references to the varied experiences +of Sir Roger Manwood and of his uncle Sir +Thomas Scot merely confirm an impression gained +from the literature of the time that the witch executions +were becoming, throughout the seventies and early +eighties, too common to be remarkable. For the second +period we have record of probably a larger percentage +of all the cases. For the whole time from 1563, +when the new law went into effect, down to 1603, we +have records of nearly fifty executions. Of these just +about two-thirds occurred in the earlier period, while +of the acquittals two-thirds belong to the later period. +It would be rash to attach too much significance to these +figures. As a matter of fact, the records are so incomplete +that the actual totals have little if any meaning +and only the proportions can be considered.<a name="FNanchor_56-1_30" id="FNanchor_56-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_56-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Yet it +looks as if the forces which caused the persecution of +witches in England were beginning to abate; and it may +fairly be inquired whether some new factor may not +have entered into the situation. It is time to speak of +Reginald Scot and of the exorcists.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35-1_1" id="Footnote_35-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Who from a confession made in 1579 seems to have been her sister. +See the pamphlet <i>A Detection of damnable driftes, practised by three +Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde in Essex at the last Assizes there +holden, which were executed in Aprill, 1579</i> (London, 1579).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36-1_2" id="Footnote_36-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>E. g.</i>: "I was afearde for he [the dog with horns] skypped and +leaped to and fro, and satte on the toppe of a nettle."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36-2_3" id="Footnote_36-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Whether Agnes Waterhouse had a "daggar's knife" and whether +the dog had the face of an ape.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36-3_4" id="Footnote_36-3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36-3_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> An offer which indicates that he was acting as judge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37-1_5" id="Footnote_37-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> She was questioned on her church habits. She claimed to be a regular +attendant; she "prayed right hartely there." She admitted, however, +that she prayed "in laten" because Sathan would not let her pray in +English.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37-2_6" id="Footnote_37-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> There is of course the further possibility that the pamphlet account +was largely invented. A critical examination of the pamphlet tends to +establish its trustworthiness. See appendix A, § 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38-1_7" id="Footnote_38-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Alice Chandler was probably hanged at this time. The failure to +mention her name is easily explained when we remember that the +pamphlet was issued in two parts, as soon as possible after the event. +Alice Chandler's case probably did not come up for trial until the two +parts of the pamphlet had already been published. See <i>A Detection of +damnable driftes</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39-1_8" id="Footnote_39-1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39-1_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mother Staunton, who had apparently made some pretensions to the +practice of magic, was arraigned on several charges. She had been +refused her requests by several people, who had thereupon suffered some +ills.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39-2_9" id="Footnote_39-2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39-2_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It is possible that the whole affair started from the whim of a sick +child, who, when she saw Elleine Smith, cried, "Away with the witch."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39-3_10" id="Footnote_39-3_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39-3_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> A caution here. The pamphlets were hastily compiled and perhaps +left out important facts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40-1_11" id="Footnote_40-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Her eight-year-old boy was probably illegitimate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40-2_12" id="Footnote_40-2_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40-2_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Mother Waterhouse's knowledge of Latin, if that is more than the +fiction of a Protestant pamphleteer, is rather remarkable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42-1_13" id="Footnote_42-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42-1_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Allowance must be made for a very prejudiced reporter, <i>i. e.</i>, the +judge himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42-2_14" id="Footnote_42-2_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42-2_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> These details were very probably suggested to her by the judge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42-3_15" id="Footnote_42-3_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42-3_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Who promised her also "favour."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44-1_16" id="Footnote_44-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The detestable methods of Justice Darcy come out in the case of a +woman from whom he threatened to remove her imps if she did not +confess, and by that means trapped her into the incriminating statement, +"That shal ye not."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45-1_17" id="Footnote_45-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> William Hooke had heard William Newman "bid the said Ales his +wife to beate it away." Comparable with this was the evidence of +Margerie Sammon who "sayeth that the saide widow Hunt did tell her +that shee had harde the said Joan Pechey, being in her house, verie often +to chide and vehemently speaking, ... and sayth that shee went in to +see, ... shee founde no bodie but herselfe alone."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46-1_18" id="Footnote_46-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Reginald Scot, <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 542, says of this trial, "In +the meane time let anie man with good consideration peruse that booke +published by W. W. and it shall suffice to satisfie him in all that may +be required.... See whether the witnesses be not single, of what +credit, sex, and age they are; namelie lewd miserable and envious poore +people; most of them which speake to anie purpose being old women and +children of the age of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 yeares."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46-2_19" id="Footnote_46-2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46-2_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> There can be no doubt that Brian Darcy either wrote the account +himself or dictated it to "W. W." The frequent use of "me," meaning +by that pronoun the judge, indicates that he was responsible.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46-3_20" id="Footnote_46-3_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46-3_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> It is some relief in this trial to read the testimony of John Tendering +about William Byett. He had a cow "in a strange case." He could not +lift it. He put fire under the cow, she got up and "there stood still +and fell a byting of stickes larger than any man's finger and after lived +and did well."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48-1_21" id="Footnote_48-1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48-1_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Second wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, who was the grandfather of +Oliver.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49-1_22" id="Footnote_49-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The children were strangely inconsistent. At the first they had fits +when Mother Samuel appeared. Later they were troubled unless Mother +Samuel were kept in the house, or unless they were taken to her house.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49-2_23" id="Footnote_49-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> This device seems to have been originally suggested by the children +to try Mother Samuel's guilt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50-1_24" id="Footnote_50-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50-1_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The clergyman, "Doctor Dorrington," had been one of the leaders +in prosecuting them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51-1_25" id="Footnote_51-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel</i> +(London, 1599), 92, 97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52-1_26" id="Footnote_52-1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52-1_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Among the manuscripts on witchcraft in the Bodleian Library are +three such pardons of witches for their witchcraft—one of Jane Mortimer +in 1595, one of Rosa Bexwell in 1600, and one of "Alice S.," +without date but under Elizabeth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53-1_27" id="Footnote_53-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> In 1595 he was made warden of the Manchester Collegiate Church. +Dee has in our days found a biographer. See <i>John Dee</i> (1527-1608), by +Charlotte Fell Smith (London, 1909).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54-1_28" id="Footnote_54-1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54-1_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> For the particular case, see Mary Bateson, ed., <i>Records of the +Borough of Leicester</i> (Cambridge, 1899), III. 335; for the general letters +patent covering such cases see <i>id.</i>, II, 365, 366.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55-1_29" id="Footnote_55-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55-1_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> For this story see Ralph Holinshed, <i>Chronicles of England, Scotland, +and Ireland</i> (London, 1577, reprinted 1586-1587 and 1807-1808), ed. of +1807-1808, IV, 891, 893. Faversham was then "Feversham."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56-1_30" id="Footnote_56-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Justice Anderson, when sentencing a witch to a year's imprisonment, +declared that this was the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth witch he had +condemned. This is good evidence that the records of many cases have +been lost. See Brit. Mus., Sloane MS. 831, f. 38.</p></div> + + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Reginald Scot.</h3> + + +<p>From the chronicling of witch trials we turn aside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +in this chapter to follow the career of the first great +English opponent of the superstition. We have seen +how the attack upon the supposed creatures of the +Devil was growing stronger throughout the reign of +Elizabeth. We shall see how that attack was checked, +at least in some degree, by the resistance of one man. +Few men of so quiet and studious life have wrought so +effectively as Reginald Scot. He came of a family well +known in Kent, but not politically aggressive. As a +young man he studied at Hart Hall<a name="FNanchor_57-1_1" id="FNanchor_57-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_57-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in Oxford, but +left without taking his degree and returned to Scots-Hall, +where he settled down to the routine duties of +managing his estate. He gave himself over, we are +told, to husbandry and gardening and to a solid course +of general reading in the obscure authors that had "by +the generality been neglected." In 1574 his studies in +horticulture resulted in the publication of <i>A Perfect +Platforme of a Hoppe-Garden and necessary instructions +for the making and maintaining thereof</i>. That +the book ministered to a practical interest was evidenced +by the call for three editions within five years. +Whether he now applied himself to the study of that +subject which was to be the theme of his <i>Discoverie</i>, +we do not know. It was a matter which had doubtless +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>arrested his attention even earlier and had enlisted a +growing interest upon his part. Not until a decade +after his <i>Hoppe-Garden</i>, however, did he put forth the +epoch-making <i>Discoverie</i>. Nor does it seem likely that +he had been engaged for a long period on the actual +composition. Rather, the style and matter of the book +seem to evince traces of hurry in preparation. If this +theory be true—and Mr. Brinsley Nicholson, his modern +commentator, has adduced excellent reasons for accepting +it<a name="FNanchor_58-1_2" id="FNanchor_58-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_58-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>—there can be but one explanation, the St. +Oses affair. That tragedy, occurring within a short +distance of his own home, had no doubt so outraged +his sense of justice, that the work which he had perhaps +long been contemplating he now set himself to +complete as soon as possible.<a name="FNanchor_58-2_3" id="FNanchor_58-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_58-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Even he who runs may +read in Scot's strong sentences that he was not writing +for instruction only, to propound a new doctrine, but +that he was battling with the single purpose to stop a +detestable and wicked practice. Something of a dilettante +in real life, he became in his writing a man with +an absorbing mission. That mission sprang not indeed +from indignation at the St. Oses affair alone. From the +days of childhood his experience had been of a kind to +encourage skepticism. He had been reared in a county +where Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, first +came into prominence, and he had seen the downfall +that followed her public exposure.<a name="FNanchor_58-3_4" id="FNanchor_58-3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_58-3_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> In the year after he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>brought out his <i>Hoppe-garden</i>, his county was again +stirred by performances of a supposedly supernatural +character. Mildred Norrington, a girl of seventeen,<a name="FNanchor_59-1_5" id="FNanchor_59-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> used +ventriloquism with such skill that she convinced two +clergymen and all her neighbors that she was possessed. +In answer to queries, the evil spirit that spoke through +Mildred declared that "old Alice of Westwell"<a name="FNanchor_59-2_6" id="FNanchor_59-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> had sent +him to possess the girl. Alice, the spirit admitted, stood +guilty of terrible witchcrafts. The demon's word was +taken, and Alice seems to have been "arraigned upon +this evidence."<a name="FNanchor_59-3_7" id="FNanchor_59-3_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-3_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> But, through the justices' adroit management +of the trial, the fraud of the accuser was exposed. +She confessed herself a pretender and suffered +"condign punishment." This case happened within six +miles of Scot's home and opened his eyes to the possibility +of humbug. In the very same year two pretenders, +Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder, were convicted +in London. By vomiting pins and straws<a name="FNanchor_59-4_8" id="FNanchor_59-4_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-4_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> they +had convinced many that they were bewitched, but the +trickery was soon found out and they were compelled +to do public penance at St. Paul's.<a name="FNanchor_59-5_9" id="FNanchor_59-5_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_59-5_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> We are not told +what was the fate of a detestable Mother Baker, who, +when consulted by the parents of a sick girl at New +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>Romney in Kent, accused a neighbor woman.<a name="FNanchor_60-1_10" id="FNanchor_60-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_60-1_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> She +said that the woman had made a waxen heart and +pricked it and by this means accomplished her evil purpose. +In order to prove her accusation, she had in the +mean time concealed the wax figure of a heart in the +house of the woman she accused, and then pretended +to find it.<a name="FNanchor_60-2_11" id="FNanchor_60-2_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_60-2_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> It is some satisfaction to know that the malicious +creature—who, during the history of witchcraft, +had many imitators—was caught and compelled to +confess.</p> + +<p>Scot learned, indeed, by observing marvels of this +sort<a name="FNanchor_60-3_12" id="FNanchor_60-3_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_60-3_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—what it is strange that many others did not +learn—to look upon displays of the supernatural with +a good deal of doubt. How much he had ever believed +in them we do not know. It is not unlikely that in common +with his generation he had, as a young man, held +a somewhat ill-defined opinion about the Devil's use of +witches. The belief in that had come down, a comparatively +innocuous tradition, from a primitive period. It +was a subject that had not been raised in speculation or +for that matter in court rooms. But since Scot's early +manhood all this had been changed. England had been +swept by a tidal wave of suspicion. Hazy theological +notions had been tightened into rigid convictions. Convictions +had passed into legislative statutes and instructions +to judges. The bench, which had at first +acted on the new laws with caution and a desire to detect +imposture, became infected with the fear and grew +more ready to discover witchcraft and to punish it. It +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>is unnecessary to recapitulate the progress of a movement +already traced in the previous chapter. Suffice it +to say that the Kentish gentleman, familiarized with +accounts of imposture, was unwilling to follow the rising +current of superstition. Of course this is merely +another way of saying that Scot was unconventional +in his mental operations and thought the subject out +for himself with results variant from those of his own +generation. Here was a new abuse in England, here +was a wrong that he had seen spring up within his own +lifetime and in his own part of England. He made it +his mission as far as possible to right the wrong. "For +so much," he says, "as the mightie helpe themselves +together, and the poore widowes crie, though it reach to +heaven, is scarse heard here upon earth: I thought +good (according to my poore abilitie) to make intercession, +that some part of common rigor, and some +points of hastie judgement may be advised upon."<a name="FNanchor_61-1_13" id="FNanchor_61-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_61-1_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>It was indeed a splendid mission and he was singularly +well equipped for it. He had the qualifications—scholarly +training and the power of scientific observation, +a background of broad theological and scriptural +information, a familiarity with legal learning and practice, +as well as a command of vigorous and incisive language—which +were certain to make his work effective +towards its object.</p> + +<p>That he was a scholar is true in more senses than one. +In his use of deduction from classical writers he was +something of a scholastic, in his willingness to venture +into new fields of thought he was a product of the Renaissance, +in his thorough use of research he reminds us +of a modern investigator. He gives in his book a bib<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>liography +of the works consulted by him and one counts +over two hundred Latin and thirty English titles. His +reading had covered the whole field of superstition. To +Cornelius Agrippa and to Wierus (Johann Weyer),<a name="FNanchor_62-1_14" id="FNanchor_62-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_62-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +who had attacked the tyranny of superstition upon the +Continent, he owed an especial debt. He had not, however, +borrowed enough from them to impair in any +serious way the value of his own original contribution.</p> + +<p>In respect to law, Scot was less a student than a man +of experience. The <i>Discoverie</i>, however, bristled with +references which indicated a legal way of thinking. He +was almost certainly a man who had used the law. +Brinsley Nicholson believes that he had been a justice +of the peace. In any case he had a lawyer's sense of the +value of evidence and a lawyer's way of putting his +case.</p> + +<p>No less practical was his knowledge of theology and +scripture. Here he had to meet the baffling problems +of the Witch of Endor. The story of the witch who +had called up before the frightened King Saul the +spirit of the dead Samuel and made him speak, stood as +a lion in the path of all opponents of witch persecution. +When Scot dared to explain this Old Testament tale +as an instance of ventriloquism, and to compare it to +the celebrated case of Mildred Norrington, he showed +a boldness in interpretation of the Bible far in advance +of his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>His anticipation of present-day points of view +cropped out perhaps more in his scientific spirit than in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>any other way. For years before he put pen to paper +he had been conducting investigations into alleged cases +of conjuring and witchcraft, attending trials,<a name="FNanchor_63-1_15" id="FNanchor_63-1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_63-1_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and +questioning clergymen and magistrates. For such observation +he was most favorably situated and he used his +position in his community to further his knowledge. A +man almost impertinently curious was this sixteenth-century +student. When he learned of a conjurer whose +sentence of death had been remitted by the queen and +who professed penitence for his crimes, he opened a +correspondence and obtained from the man the clear +statement that his conjuries were all impostures. The +prisoner referred him to "a booke written in the old +Saxon toong by one Sir John Malborne, a divine of +Oxenford, three hundred yeares past," in which all +these trickeries are cleared up. Scot put forth his best +efforts to procure the work from the parson to whom it +had been entrusted, but without success.<a name="FNanchor_63-2_16" id="FNanchor_63-2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_63-2_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> In another +case he attended the assizes at Rochester, where a +woman was on trial. One of her accusers was the vicar +of the parish, who made several charges, not the least +of which was that he could not enunciate clearly in +church owing to enchantment. This explanation Scot +carried to her and she was able to give him an explanation +much less creditable to the clergyman of the +ailment, an explanation which Scot found confirmed +by an enquiry among the neighbors. To quiet such +rumors in the community about the nature of the illness +the vicar had to procure from London a medical +certificate that it was a lung trouble.<a name="FNanchor_63-3_17" id="FNanchor_63-3_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_63-3_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p><p>Can we wonder that a student at such pains to discover +the fact as to a wrong done should have used +barbed words in the portrayal of injustice? Strong +convictions spurred on his pen, already taught to shape +vigorous and incisive sentences. Not a stylist, as measured +by the highest Elizabethan standards of charm and +mellifluence, he possessed a clearness and directness +which win the modern reader. By his methods of analysis +he displayed a quality of mind akin to and probably +influenced by that of Calvin, while his intellectual +attitude showed the stimulus of the Reformation.</p> + +<p>He was indeed in his own restricted field a reformer. +He was not only the protagonist of a new cause, but a +pioneer who had to cut through the underbrush of +opinion a pathway for speculation to follow. So far +as England was concerned, Scot found no philosophy +of the subject, no systematic defences or assaults upon +the loosely constructed theory of demonic agency. +It was for him to state in definite terms the beliefs he +was seeking to overthrow. The Roman church knew +fairly well by this time what it meant by witchcraft, +but English theologians and philosophers would +hardly have found common ground on any one tenet +about the matter.<a name="FNanchor_64-1_18" id="FNanchor_64-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_64-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Without exaggeration it may be +asserted that Scot by his assault all along the front +forced the enemy's advance and in some sense dictated +his line of battle.</p> + +<p>The assault was directed indeed against the centre +of the opposing entrenchments, the belief in the con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>tinuance +of miracles. Scot declared that with Christ +and his apostles the age of miracles had passed, an +opinion which he supported by the authority of Calvin +and of St. Augustine. What was counted the supernatural +assumed two forms—the phenomena exhibited +by those whom he classed under the wide term of +"couseners," and the phenomena said to be exhibited +by the "poor doting women" known as witches. The +tricks and deceits of the "couseners" he was at great +pains to explain. Not less than one-third of his work +is given up to setting forth the methods of conjurers, +card tricks, sleight-of-hand performances, illusions of +magic, materializations of spirits, and the wonders of +alchemy and astrology. In the range of his information +about these subjects, the discoverer was encyclopedic. +No current form of dabbling with the supernatural +was left unexposed.</p> + +<p>In his attack upon the phenomena of witchcraft he +had a different problem. He had to deal with phenomena +the so-called facts of which were not susceptible +of any material explanation. The theory of a Devil +who had intimate relations with human beings, who +controlled them and sent them out upon maleficent +errands, was in its essence a theological conception +and could not be absolutely disproved by scientific +observation. It was necessary instead to attack the +idea on its <i>a priori</i> grounds. This attack Scot attempted +to base on the nature of spirits. Spirits and +bodies, he urged, are antithetical and inconvertible, +nor can any one save God give spirit a bodily form. +The Devil, a something beyond our comprehension, +cannot change spirit into body, nor can he himself +assume a bodily form, nor has he any power save that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +granted him by God for vengeance. This being true, +the whole belief in the Devil's intercourse with witches +is undermined. Such, very briefly, were the philosophic +bases of Scot's skepticism. Yet the more cogent +parts of his work were those in which he denied the +validity of any evidence so far offered for the existence +of witches. What is witchcraft? he asked; and +his answer is worth quoting. "Witchcraft is in truth +a cousening art, wherin the name of God is abused, +prophaned and blasphemed, and his power attributed +to a vile creature. In estimation of the vulgar people, +it is a supernaturall worke, contrived betweene a corporall +old woman, and a spirituall divell. The maner +thereof is so secret, mysticall, and strange, that to this +daie there hath never beene any credible witnes +thereof."<a name="FNanchor_66-1_19" id="FNanchor_66-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_66-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The want of credible evidence was indeed +a point upon which Scot continually insisted +with great force. He pictured vividly the course which +a witchcraft case often ran: "One sort of such as are +said to bee witches are women which be commonly +old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles; +... they are leane and deformed, shewing melancholie +in their faces; ... they are doting, scolds, mad, divelish.... +These miserable wretches are so odious unto all +their neighbors, and so feared, as few dare offend them, +or denie them anie thing they aske: whereby they take +upon them, yea, and sometimes thinke, that they can +doo such things as are beyond the abilitie of humane +nature. These go from house to house, and from doore +to doore for a pot of milke, yest, drinke, pottage, or +some such releefe; without the which they could hardlie +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>live.... It falleth out many times, that neither their +necessities, nor their expectation is answered.... In +tract of time the witch waxeth odious and tedious to +hir neighbors; ... she cursseth one, and sometimes another; +and that from the maister of the house, his wife, +children, cattell, etc. to the little pig that lieth in the +stie.... Doubtlesse (at length) some of hir neighbours +die, or fall sicke."<a name="FNanchor_67-1_20" id="FNanchor_67-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_67-1_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Then they suspect her, says +Scot, and grow convinced that she is the author of their +mishaps. "The witch, ... seeing things sometimes +come to passe according to hir wishes, ... being called +before a Justice, ... confesseth that she hath brought +such things to passe. Wherein, not onelie she, but the +accuser, and also the Justice are fowlie deceived and +abused."<a name="FNanchor_67-2_21" id="FNanchor_67-2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_67-2_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Such indeed was the epitome of many +cases. The process from beginning to end was never +better described; the ease with which confessions were +dragged from weak-spirited women was never pictured +more truly. With quite as keen insight he displayed +the motives that animated witnesses and described +the prejudices and fears that worked on jurors and +judges. It was, indeed, upon these factors that he +rested the weight of his argument for the negative.<a name="FNanchor_67-3_22" id="FNanchor_67-3_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_67-3_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>The affirmative opinion was grounded, he believed, +upon the ignorance of the common people, "assotted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>and bewitched" by the jesting or serious words of +poets, by the inventions of "lowd liers and couseners," +and by "tales they have heard from old doting women, +or from their mother's maids, and with whatsoever the +grandfoole their ghostlie father or anie other morrow +masse preest had informed them."<a name="FNanchor_68-1_23" id="FNanchor_68-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>By the same method by which he opposed the belief +in witchcraft he opposed the belief in possession by an +evil spirit. The known cases, when examined, proved +frauds. The instances in the New Testament he +seemed inclined to explain by the assumption that possession +merely meant disease.<a name="FNanchor_68-2_24" id="FNanchor_68-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>That Scot should maintain an absolute negative in +the face of all strange phenomena would have been too +much to expect. He seems to have believed, though +not without some difficulty, that stones had in them +"certaine proper vertues which are given them of a +speciall influence of the planets." The unicorn's horn, +he thought, had certain curative properties. And he +had heard "by credible report" and the affirmation of +"many grave authors" that "the wound of a man +murthered reneweth bleeding at the presence of a deere +freend, or of a mortall enimie."<a name="FNanchor_68-3_25" id="FNanchor_68-3_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_68-3_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>His credulity in these points may be disappointing +to the reader who hopes to find in Scot a scientific +rationalist. That, of course, he was not; and his leaning +towards superstition on these points makes one +ask, What did he really believe about witchcraft? +When all the fraud and false testimony and self-deception +were excluded, what about the remaining cases +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>of witchcraft? Scot was very careful never to deny <i>in +toto</i> the existence of witches. That would have been +to deny the Bible. What were these witches, then? +Doubtless he would have answered that he had already +classified them under two heads: they were either +"couseners" or "poor doting women"—and by +"couseners" he seems to have meant those who used +trickery and fraud. In other words, Scot distinctly +implied that there were no real witches—with powers +given them by the Devil. Would he have stood by this +when pushed into a corner? It is just possible that he +would have done so, that he understood his own implications, +but hardly dared to utter a straighforward +denial of the reality of witchcraft. It is more likely +that he had not altogether thought himself out.</p> + +<p>The immediate impression of Scot's book we know +little about. Such contemporary comment as we have +is neutral.<a name="FNanchor_69-1_26" id="FNanchor_69-1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_69-1_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> That his book was read painstakingly by +every later writer on the subject, that it shortly became +the great support of one party in the controversy, that +King James deemed it worth while to write an answer, +and that on his accession to the throne he almost certainly +ordered the book to be burned by the common +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>hangman,<a name="FNanchor_70-1_27" id="FNanchor_70-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> these are better evidence than absolutely +contemporary notices to show that the <i>Discoverie</i> exerted +an influence.</p> + +<p>We cannot better suggest how radical Scot's position +must have seemed to his own time than by showing +the point of view of another opponent of witchcraft, +George Gifford, a non-conformist clergyman.<a name="FNanchor_70-2_28" id="FNanchor_70-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> He +had read the <i>Discoverie</i> and probably felt that the theological +aspect of the subject had been neglected. +Moreover it had probably been his fortune, as Scot's, +to attend the St. Oses trials. Three years after Scot's +book he brought out <i>A Discourse of the Subtill Practises +of Devilles by Witches</i>, and followed it six years +later by <i>A Dialogue concerning Witches</i>,<a name="FNanchor_70-3_29" id="FNanchor_70-3_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-3_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> a book in +which he expounded his opinions in somewhat more +popular fashion. Like Scot, he wrote to end, so far as +possible, the punishment of innocent women;<a name="FNanchor_70-4_30" id="FNanchor_70-4_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-4_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> like +Scot, he believed that most of the evidence presented +against them was worthless.<a name="FNanchor_70-5_31" id="FNanchor_70-5_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_70-5_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> But on other points he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>was far less radical. There were witches. He found +them in the Bible.<a name="FNanchor_71-1_32" id="FNanchor_71-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> To be sure they were nothing more +than pawns for the Devil. He uses them "onely for a +colour,"<a name="FNanchor_71-2_33" id="FNanchor_71-2_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-2_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> that is, puts them forward to cover his own +dealings, and then he deludes them and makes them +"beleeve things which are nothing so."<a name="FNanchor_71-3_34" id="FNanchor_71-3_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-3_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> In consequence +they frequently at their executions falsely accuse +others of dreadful witchcrafts. It is all the work +of the Devil. But he himself cannot do anything except +through the power of God,<a name="FNanchor_71-4_35" id="FNanchor_71-4_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-4_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> who, sometimes for +vengeance upon His enemies and sometimes to try His +own people,<a name="FNanchor_71-5_36" id="FNanchor_71-5_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-5_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> permits the Evil One to do harm.<a name="FNanchor_71-6_37" id="FNanchor_71-6_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_71-6_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p><p>Gifford of course never made the impression that +Scot had made.<a name="FNanchor_72-1_38" id="FNanchor_72-1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_72-1_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> But he represented the more conservative +position and was the first in a long line of +writers who deprecated persecution while they accepted +the current view as to witchcraft; and therefore he furnishes +a standard by which to measure Scot, who had +nothing of the conservative about him. Scot had +many readers and exerted a strong influence even upon +those who disagreed with him; but he had few or none +to follow in his steps. It was not until nearly a century +later that there came upon the scene a man who dared +to speak as Scot had spoken. Few men have been so +far ahead of their time.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57-1_1" id="Footnote_57-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Where George Gifford, who wrote a little later on the subject, was +also a student.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58-1_2" id="Footnote_58-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, Nicholson ed., introd., xxxv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58-2_3" id="Footnote_58-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> That at least a part of it was written in 1583 appears from his own +words, where he speaks of the treatise of Leonardus Vairus on fascination +as "now this present yeare 1583 newlie published," <i>ibid.</i>, 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58-3_4" id="Footnote_58-3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58-3_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534) suffered from a nervous derangement +which developed into a religious mania. She was taught by some monks, +and then professed to be in communion with the Virgin Mary and performed +miracles at stated times. She denounced Henry VIII's divorce +and gained wide recognition as a champion of the queen and the Catholic +church. She was granted interviews by Archbishop Warham, by Thomas +More, and by Wolsey. She was finally induced by Cranmer to make +confession, was compelled publicly to repeat her confession in various +places, and was then executed; see <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59-1_5" id="Footnote_59-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Illegitimate child.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59-2_6" id="Footnote_59-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> That is, very probably, Alice Norrington, the mother of Mildred.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59-3_7" id="Footnote_59-3_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-3_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59-4_8" id="Footnote_59-4_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-4_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59-5_9" id="Footnote_59-5_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59-5_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See <i>The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl +in two maydens within the Citie of London</i>; see also Holinshed, <i>Chronicles</i>, +ed. of 1807-1808, IV, 325, and John Stow, <i>Annals ... of England</i> +(London, 1615), 678.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60-1_10" id="Footnote_60-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60-1_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 258, 259.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60-2_11" id="Footnote_60-2_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60-2_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The spot she chose for concealing the token of guilt had been previously +searched.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60-3_12" id="Footnote_60-3_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60-3_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> For another see <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 132-133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61-1_13" id="Footnote_61-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61-1_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> In his prefatory epistle "to the Readers."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62-1_14" id="Footnote_62-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> An incidental reference to Weyer in "W. W.'s" account of the +<i>Witches taken at St. Oses</i> is interesting: "... whom a learned Phisitian +is not ashamed to avouche innocent, and the Judges that denounce sentence +of death against them no better than hangmen."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63-1_15" id="Footnote_63-1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63-1_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>E. g., Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63-2_16" id="Footnote_63-2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63-2_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 466-469.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63-3_17" id="Footnote_63-3_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63-3_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 5-6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64-1_18" id="Footnote_64-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 15: "Howbeit you shall understand that few or none are +throughlie persuaded, resolved, or satisfied, that witches can indeed accomplish +all these impossibilities; but some one is bewitched in one +point, and some is coosened in another, untill in fine, all these impossibilities, +and manie mo, are by severall persons affirmed to be true."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66-1_19" id="Footnote_66-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Discoverie</i>, 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67-1_20" id="Footnote_67-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67-1_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 7-8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67-2_21" id="Footnote_67-2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67-2_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67-3_22" id="Footnote_67-3_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67-3_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> It was one of the points made by "witchmongers" that the existence +of laws against witches proved there were witches. This argument was +used by Sir Matthew Hale as late as 1664. Scot says on that point: "Yet +I confesse, the customes and lawes almost of all nations doo declare, that +all these miraculous works ... were attributed to the power of witches. +The which lawes, with the executions and judicials thereupon, and +the witches confessions, have beguiled almost the whole world." <i>Ibid.</i>, +220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68-1_23" id="Footnote_68-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Discoverie</i>, 471, 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68-2_24" id="Footnote_68-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 512.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68-3_25" id="Footnote_68-3_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68-3_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69-1_26" id="Footnote_69-1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69-1_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Thomas Nash in his <i>Four Letters Confuted</i> (London, 1593) refers +to it in a non-committal way as a work treating of "the diverse natures +and properties of Divels and Spirits." Gabriel Harvey's <i>Pierces Supererogation</i> +(London, 1593), has the following mention of it: "Scottes +discoovery of Witchcraft dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in +certaine principall chapters, and special passages, hitteth the nayle on the +head with a witnesse; howsoever I could have wished he had either dealt +somewhat more curteously with Monsieur Bodine, or confuted him somewhat +more effectually." Professor Burr informs me that there is in the +British Museum (Harleian MSS. 2302) an incomplete and unpublished +reply to Scot. Its handwriting shows it contemporary or nearly so. It +is a series of "Reasons" why witches should be believed in—the +MS. in its present state beginning with the "5th Reason" and +breaking off in the midst of the 108th.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70-1_27" id="Footnote_70-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See Nicholson's opinion on this, pp. xxxvii-xxxix of his introduction +to Scot's book.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70-2_28" id="Footnote_70-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> George Gifford was a Church of England clergyman whose Puritan +sympathies at length compelled him to identify himself publicly with the +non-conformist movement in 1584. For two years previous to that time +he had held the living of Maldon in Essex.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70-3_29" id="Footnote_70-3_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-3_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> A second edition of this book appeared in 1603. It was reprinted for +the Percy Society in 1842.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70-4_30" id="Footnote_70-4_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-4_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Dialogue</i>, ed. of 1603, prefatory letter and L-M 2 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70-5_31" id="Footnote_70-5_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70-5_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Discourse</i>, D 3 verso, G 4 verso; <i>Dialogue</i>, ed. of 1603, K 2-K 2 +verso, L-L 2. See also <i>ibid.</i>, K 4-K 4 verso: "As not long since a rugged +water spaniell having a chaine, came to a mans doore that had a saut +bitch, and some espied him in the darke, and said it was a thing as +bigge as a colt, and had eyes as great as saucers. Hereupon some came +to charge to him, and did charge him in the name of the Father, the +Sonne, and the Holy Ghost, to tell what he was. The dogge at the last +told them, for he spake in his language, and said, bowgh, and thereby +they did know what he was."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-1_32" id="Footnote_71-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Discourse</i>, in the prefatory letter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-2_33" id="Footnote_71-2_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-2_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, F 4 verso, F 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-3_34" id="Footnote_71-3_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-3_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Dialogue</i>, ed of 1603, K 2 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-4_35" id="Footnote_71-4_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-4_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, D 3 verso; <i>Discourse</i>, G 3 verso, H 3 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-5_36" id="Footnote_71-5_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-5_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, D 2 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71-6_37" id="Footnote_71-6_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71-6_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Gifford grew very forceful when he described the progress of a case +against a witch: "Some woman doth fal out bitterly with her neighbour: +there followeth some great hurt.... There is a suspicion conceived. +Within fewe yeares after shee is in some jarre with an other. Hee is +also plagued. This is noted of all. Great fame is spread of the matter. +Mother W. is a witch.... Wel, mother W. doth begin to bee very odious +and terrible unto many, her neighbours dare say nothing but yet in their +heartes they wish shee were hanged. Shortly after an other falleth +sicke and doth pine.... The neighbors come to visit him. Well +neighbour, sayth one, do ye not suspect some naughty dealing: did yee +never anger mother W? truly neighbour (sayth he) I have not liked the +woman a long tyme. I can not tell how I should displease her, unlesse +it were this other day, my wife prayed her, and so did I, that shee +would keepe her hennes out of my garden. Wee spake her as fayre as +wee could for our lives. I thinke verely she hath bewitched me. Every +body sayth now that mother W. is a witch in deede.... It is out of +all doubt: for there were which saw a weasil runne from her housward +into his yard even a little before hee fell sicke. The sicke man dieth, +and taketh it upon his death that he is bewitched: then is mother W. +apprehended, and sent to prison, shee is arrayned and condemned, and +being at the gallows, taketh it uppon her death that shee is not gylty." +<i>Discourse</i>, G 4-G 4 verso. And so, Gifford explains, the Devil is pleased, +for he has put innocent people into danger, he has caused witnesses to +forswear themselves and jurymen to render false verdicts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72-1_38" id="Footnote_72-1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72-1_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> But his views were warmly seconded by Henry Holland, who in +1590 issued at Cambridge <i>A Treatise against Witchcraft</i>. Holland, +however, was chiefly interested in warning "Masters and Fathers of families +that they may learn the best meanes to purge their houses of all unclean +spirits." It goes without saying that he found himself at variance +with Scot, who, he declared, reduced witchcraft to a "cozening or +poisoning art." In the Scriptures he found the evidence that witches +have a real "confederacie with Satan himself," but he was frank to admit +that the proof of bargains of the sort in his own time could not be +given.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Exorcists.</h3> + + +<p>In the narrative of English witchcraft the story of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +the exorcists is a side-issue. Yet their performances +were so closely connected with the operations of the +Devil and of his agents that they cannot be left out of +account in any adequate statement of the subject. And +it is impossible to understand the strength and weakness +of the superstition without a comprehension of the rôle +that the would-be agents for expelling evil spirits +played. That the reign which had seen pass in procession +the bands of conjurers and witches should +close with the exorcists was to be expected. It was +their part to complete the cycle of superstition. If +miracles of magic were possible, if conjurers could use +a supernatural power of some sort to assist them in +performing wonders, there was nothing very remarkable +about creatures who wrought harm to their fellows +through the agency of evil spirits. And if witches +could send evil spirits to do harm, it followed that those +spirits could be expelled or exorcised by divine assistance. +If by prayer to the Devil demons could be +commanded to enter human beings, they could be driven +out by prayer to God. The processes of reasoning +were perfectly clear; and they were easily accepted +because they found adequate confirmation in the New +Testament. The gospels were full of narratives of men +possessed with evil spirits who had been freed by the +invocation of God. Of these stories no doubt the most +quoted and the one most effective in moulding opinion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +was the account of the dispossessed devils who had +entered into a herd of swine and plunged over a steep +place into the sea.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that exorcism was a result +of belief in witchcraft. It was as old as the Christian +church. It was still made use of by the Roman +church and, indeed, by certain Protestant groups. And +just at this time the Roman church found it a most +important instrument in the struggle against the reformed +religions. In England Romanism was waging +a losing war, and had need of all the miracles that it +could claim in order to reestablish its waning credit. +The hunted priests who were being driven out by Whitgift +were not unwilling to resort to a practice which +they hoped would regain for them the allegiance of the +common people. During the years 1585-1586 they had +conducted what they considered marvellous works of +exorcism in Catholic households of Buckinghamshire +and Middlesex.<a name="FNanchor_74-1_1" id="FNanchor_74-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_74-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Great efforts had been made to keep +news of these séances from reaching the ears of the +government, but accounts of them had gained wide +circulation and came to the privy council. That body +was of course stimulated to greater activity against the +Catholics.<a name="FNanchor_74-2_2" id="FNanchor_74-2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_74-2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p><p>As a phase of a suppressed form of religion the matter +might never have assumed any significance. Had not +a third-rate Puritan clergyman, John Darrel, almost +by accident hit upon the use of exorcism, the story of +its use would be hardly worth telling.<a name="FNanchor_75-1_3" id="FNanchor_75-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> When this +young minister was not more than twenty, but already, +as he says, reckoned "a man of hope," he was asked to +cure a seventeen-year-old girl at Mansfield in Nottingham, +Katherine Wright.<a name="FNanchor_75-2_4" id="FNanchor_75-2_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-2_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Her disease called for simple +medical treatment. That was not Darrel's plan of +operation. She had an evil spirit, he declared. From +four o'clock in the morning until noon he prayed over +her spirit. He either set going of his own initiative +the opinion that possessed persons could point out +witches, or he quickly availed himself of such a belief +already existing. The evil spirit, he declared, could +recognize and even name the witch that had sent it as +well as the witch's confederates. All of this was no +doubt suggested to the possessed girl and she was soon +induced to name the witch that troubled her. This was +Margaret Roper, a woman with whom she was upon +bad terms. Margaret Roper was at once taken into +custody by the constable. She happened to be brought +before a justice of the peace possessing more than usual +discrimination. He not only discharged her,<a name="FNanchor_75-3_5" id="FNanchor_75-3_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-3_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but +threatened John Darrel with arrest.<a name="FNanchor_75-4_6" id="FNanchor_75-4_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_75-4_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>This was in 1586. Darrel disappeared from view +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>for ten years or so, when he turned up at Burton-upon-Trent, +not very far from the scene of his first operations. +Here he volunteered to cure Thomas Darling. The +story is a curious one and too long for repetition. Some +facts must, however, be presented in order to bring the +story up to the point at which Darrel intervened. +Thomas Darling, a young Derbyshire boy, had become +ill after returning from a hunt. He was afflicted with +innumerable fits, in which he saw green angels and a +green cat. His aunt very properly consulted a physician, +who at the second consultation thought it possible +that the child was bewitched. The aunt failed +to credit the diagnosis. The boy's fits continued and +soon took on a religious character. Between seizures +he conversed with godly people. They soon discovered +that the reading of the Scriptures brought on attacks. +This looked very like the Devil's work. The suggestion +of the physician was more seriously regarded. +Meanwhile the boy had overheard the discussion of +witchcraft and proceeded to relate a story. He had +met, he said, a "little old woman" in a "gray gown with +a black fringe about the cape, a broad thrimmed hat, +and three warts on her face."<a name="FNanchor_76-1_7" id="FNanchor_76-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_76-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Very accidentally, as he +claimed, he offended her. She angrily said a rhyming +charm that ended with the words, "I wil goe to heaven, +and thou shalt goe to hell," and stooped to the ground.</p> + +<p>The story produced a sensation. Those who heard it +declared at once that the woman must have been Elizabeth +Wright, or her daughter Alse Gooderidge, women +long suspected of witchcraft. Alse was fetched to the +boy. She said she had never seen him, but her pres<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>ence +increased the violence of his fits. Mother and +daughter were carried before two justices of the peace, +who examined them together with Alse's husband and +daughter. The women were searched for special marks +in the usual revolting manner with the usual outcome, +but only Alse herself was sent to gaol.<a name="FNanchor_77-1_8" id="FNanchor_77-1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_77-1_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The boy grew no better. It was discovered that the +reading of certain verses in the first chapter of John +invariably set him off.<a name="FNanchor_77-2_9" id="FNanchor_77-2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_77-2_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The justices of the peace put +Alse through several examinations, but with little result. +Two good witches were consulted, but refused to help +unless the family of the bewitched came to see them.</p> + +<p>Meantime a cunning man appeared who promised +to prove Alse a witch. In the presence of "manie +worshipfull personages" "he put a paire of new shooes +on her feete, setting her close to the fire till the shooes +being extreame hot might constrayne her through increase +of the paine to confesse." "This," says the +writer, "was his ridiculous practice." The woman +"being throghly heated desired a release" and offered +to confess, but, as soon as her feet were cooled, refused. +No doubt the justices of the peace would have repudiated +the statement that the illegal process of torture +was used. The methods of the cunning man were really +nothing else.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p><p>The woman was harried day and night by neighbors +to bring her to confess.<a name="FNanchor_78-1_10" id="FNanchor_78-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_78-1_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> At length she gave way and, +in a series of reluctant confessions, told a crude story +of her wrong-doings that bore some slight resemblance +to the boy's tale, and involved the use of a spirit in the +form of a dog.</p> + +<p>Now it was that John Darrel came upon the ground +eager to make a name for himself. Darling had been +ill for three months and was not improving. Even yet +some of the boy's relatives and friends doubted if he +were possessed. Not so Darrel. He at once undertook +to pray and fast for the boy. According to his own +account his efforts were singularly blessed. At all +events the boy gradually improved and Darrel claimed +the credit. As for Alse Gooderidge, she was tried at +the assizes, convicted by the jury, and sentenced by +Lord Chief-Justice Anderson to imprisonment. She +died soon after.<a name="FNanchor_78-2_11" id="FNanchor_78-2_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_78-2_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> This affair undoubtedly widened +Darrel's reputation.</p> + +<p>Not long after, a notable case of possession in Lancashire +afforded him a new opportunity to attract notice. +The case of Nicholas Starchie's children provoked +so much comment at the time that it is perhaps +worth while to go back and bring the narrative up to +the point where Darrel entered.<a name="FNanchor_78-3_12" id="FNanchor_78-3_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_78-3_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Two of Starchie's +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>children had one day been taken ill most mysteriously, +the girl "with a dumpish and heavie countenance, and +with a certaine fearefull starting and pulling together +of her body." The boy was "compelled to +shout" on the way to school. Both grew steadily +worse<a name="FNanchor_79-1_13" id="FNanchor_79-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_79-1_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and the father consulted Edmund Hartley, a +noted conjurer of his time. Hartley quieted the children +by the use of charms. When he realized that his +services would be indispensable to the father he made +a pretence of leaving and so forced a promise from +Starchie to pay him 40 shillings a year. This ruse was +so successful that he raised his demands. He asked +for a house and lot, but was refused. The children fell +ill again. The perplexed parent now went to a physician +of Manchester. But the physician "sawe no signe +of sicknes." Dr. Dee, the famous astrologer and +friend of Elizabeth, was summoned. He advised the +help of "godlie preachers."<a name="FNanchor_79-2_14" id="FNanchor_79-2_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_79-2_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>Meantime the situation in the afflicted family took a +more serious turn. Besides Mr. Starchie's children, +three young wards of his, a servant, and a visitor, were +all taken with the mysterious illness. The modern +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>reader might suspect that some contagious disease had +gripped the family, but the irregular and intermittent +character of the disease precludes that hypothesis. Darrel +in his own pamphlet on the matter declares that +when the parents on one occasion went to a play the +children were quiet, but that when they were engaged +in godly exercise they were tormented, a statement +that raises a suspicion that the disease, like that of the +Throckmorton children, was largely imaginary.</p> + +<p>But the divines were at work. They had questioned +the conjurer, and had found that he fumbled "verie +ill favouredlie" in the repetition of the Lord's Prayer. +He was haled before a justice of the peace, who began +gathering evidence against him and turned him over +to the assizes. There it came out that he had been +wont to kiss the Starchie children, and had even attempted, +although without success, to kiss a maid servant. +In this way he had presumably communicated +the evil spirit—a new notion. The court could find no +law, however, upon which to hang him. He had bewitched +the children, but he had bewitched none of +them to death, and therefore had not incurred the +death penalty. But the father leaped into the gap. +He remembered that he had seen the conjurer draw a +magic circle and divide it into four parts and that he +had bidden the witness step into the quarters one after +another. Making such circles was definitely mentioned +in the law as felony. Hartley denied the charge, but to +no purpose. He was convicted of felony<a name="FNanchor_80-1_15" id="FNanchor_80-1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_80-1_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>—so far as +we can judge, on this unsupported afterthought of a +single witness—and was hanged. Sympathy, however, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>would be inappropriate. In the whole history of witchcraft +there were few victims who came so near to deserving +their fate.</p> + +<p>This was the story up to the time of Darrel's arrival. +With Darrel came his assistant, George More, pastor +of a church in Derbyshire. The two at once recognized +the supernatural character of the case they were +to treat and began religious services for the stricken +family. It was to no effect. "All or most of them +joined together in a strange and supernatural loud +whupping that the house and grounde did sounde therwith +again."</p> + +<p>But the exorcists were not by any means disheartened. +On the following day, in company with another +minister, they renewed the services and were able to +expel six of the seven spirits. On the third day they +stormed and took the last citadel of Satan. Unhappily +the capture was not permanent. Darrel tells us himself +that the woman later became a Papist<a name="FNanchor_81-1_16" id="FNanchor_81-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_81-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> and the +evil spirit returned.</p> + +<p>The exorcist now turned his skill upon a young apprenticed +musician of Nottingham. According to Darrel's +story of the affair,<a name="FNanchor_81-2_17" id="FNanchor_81-2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_81-2_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> William Somers had nine +years before met an old woman who had threatened +him. Again, more than a year before Darrel came to +Nottingham, Somers had had two encounters with a +strange woman "at a deep cole-pit, hard by the way-side." +Soon afterwards he "did use such strang +and idle kinde of gestures in laughing, dancing and such +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>like lighte behaviour, that he was suspected to be +madd." He began to suffer from bodily distortions +and to evince other signs of possession which created +no little excitement in Nottingham.</p> + +<p>Darrel had been sent for by this time. He came at +once and with his usual precipitancy pronounced the +case one of possession. Somers, he said, was suffering +for the sins of Nottingham.<a name="FNanchor_82-1_18" id="FNanchor_82-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_82-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> It was time that +something should be done. Prayer and fasting were +instituted. For three days the youth was preached to +and prayed over, while the people of Nottingham, or +some of them at least, joined in the fast. On the third +day came what was deemed a most remarkable exhibition. +The preacher named slowly, one after another, +fourteen signs of possession. As he named them +Somers illustrated in turn each form of possession.<a name="FNanchor_82-2_19" id="FNanchor_82-2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_82-2_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +Here was confirmatory evidence of a high order. The +exorcist had outdone himself. He now held out promises +of deliverance for the subject. For a quarter +of an hour the boy lay as if dead, and then rose up +quite well.</p> + +<p>Darrel now took up again the witchfinder's rôle he +had once before assumed. Somers was encouraged to +name the contrivers of his bewitchment. Through +him, Darrel is said to have boasted, they would expose +all the witches in England.<a name="FNanchor_82-3_20" id="FNanchor_82-3_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_82-3_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> They made a most excellent +start at it. Thirteen women were accused by the +boy,<a name="FNanchor_82-4_21" id="FNanchor_82-4_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_82-4_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> who would fall into fits at the sight of a witch, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>and a general invitation was extended to prefer charges. +But the community was becoming a bit incredulous +and failed to respond. All but two of the accused +women were released.</p> + +<p>The witch-discoverer, who in the meantime had been +chosen preacher at St. Mary's in Nottingham, made two +serious mistakes. He allowed accusations to be preferred +against Alice Freeman, sister of an alderman,<a name="FNanchor_83-1_22" id="FNanchor_83-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +and he let Somers be taken out of his hands. By the +contrivance of some citizens who doubted the possession, +Somers was placed in the house of correction, on +a trumped-up charge that he had bewitched a Mr. Sterland +to death.<a name="FNanchor_83-2_23" id="FNanchor_83-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Removed from the clergyman's influence, +he made confession that his possessions were +pretended.<a name="FNanchor_83-3_24" id="FNanchor_83-3_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-3_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Darrel, he declared, had taught him how +to pretend. The matter had now gained wide notoriety +and was taken up by the Anglican church. The archdeacon +of Derby reported the affair to his superiors, +and the Archbishop of York appointed a commission +to examine into the case.<a name="FNanchor_83-4_25" id="FNanchor_83-4_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-4_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Whether from alarm or +because he had anew come under Darrel's influence, +Somers refused to confess before the commission and +again acted out his fits with such success that the commission +seems to have been convinced of the reality of +his possession.<a name="FNanchor_83-5_26" id="FNanchor_83-5_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_83-5_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> This was a notable victory for the +exorcist.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p><p>But Chief-Justice Anderson of the court of common +pleas was now commencing the assizes at Nottingham +and was sitting in judgment on the case of +Alice Freeman. Anderson was a man of intense convictions. +He believed in the reality of witchcraft and +had earlier sent at least one witch to the gallows<a name="FNanchor_84-1_27" id="FNanchor_84-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_84-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and +one to prison.<a name="FNanchor_84-2_28" id="FNanchor_84-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_84-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> But he was a man who hated Puritanism +with all his heart, and would at once have suspected +Puritan exorcism. Whether because the arch-instigator +against Alice Freeman was a Puritan, or because +the evidence adduced against her was flimsy, or +because Somers, again summoned to court, acknowledged +his fraud,<a name="FNanchor_84-3_29" id="FNanchor_84-3_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_84-3_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> or for all these reasons, Anderson +not only dismissed the case,<a name="FNanchor_84-4_30" id="FNanchor_84-4_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_84-4_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> but he wrote a letter about +it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop +Whitgift called Darrel and More before the court of +high commission, where the Bishop of London, two +of the Lord Chief-Justices, the master of requests, +and other eminent officials heard the case. It seems fairly +certain that Bancroft, the Bishop of London, really +took control of this examination and that he acted quite +as much the part of a prosecutor as that of a judge. +One of Darrel's friends complained bitterly that the +exorcist was not allowed to make "his particular defences" +but "was still from time to time cut off by the +Lord Bishop of London."<a name="FNanchor_84-5_31" id="FNanchor_84-5_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_84-5_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> No doubt the bishop may +have been somewhat arbitrary. It was his privilege +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>under the procedure of the high commission court, and +he was dealing with one whom he deemed a very evident +impostor. In fine, a verdict was rendered against +the two clergymen. They were deposed from the ministry +and put in close prison.<a name="FNanchor_85-1_32" id="FNanchor_85-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_85-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> So great was the stir +they had caused that in 1599 Samuel Harsnett, chaplain +to the Bishop of London, published <i>A Discovery of +the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel</i>, a careful +résumé of the entire case, with a complete exposure of +Darrel's trickery. In this account the testimony of +Somers was given as to the origin of his possession. +He testified before the ecclesiastical court that he had +known Darrel several years before they had met at +Nottingham. At their first meeting he promised, declared +Somers, "to tell me some thinges, wherein if +I would be ruled by him, I should not be driven to goe +so barely as I did." Darrel related to Somers the +story of Katherine Wright and her possession, and +remarked, "If thou wilt sweare unto me to keepe my +counsell, I will teache thee to doe all those trickes which +Katherine Wright did, and many others that are more +straunge." He then illustrated some of the tricks for the +benefit of his pupil and gave him a written paper of +directions. From that time on there were meetings +between the two at various places. The pupil, however, +was not altogether successful with his fits and was +once turned out of service as a pretender. He was +then apprenticed to the musician already mentioned, +and again met Darrel, who urged him to go and see +Thomas Darling of Burton, "because," says Somers, +"that seeing him in his fittes, I might the better learn to +do them myselfe." Somers met Darrel again and went +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>through with a series of tricks of possession. It was +after all these meetings and practice that Somers began +his career as a possessed person in Nottingham and +was prayed over by Mr. Darrel. Such at least was +his story as told to the ecclesiastical commission. It +would be hazardous to say that the narrative was all +true. Certainly it was accepted by Harsnett, who may +be called the official reporter of the proceedings at Darrel's +trial, as substantially true.<a name="FNanchor_86-1_33" id="FNanchor_86-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_86-1_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>The publication of the <i>Discovery</i> by Harsnett proved +indeed to be only the beginning of a pamphlet controversy +which Darrel and his supporters were but too +willing to take up.<a name="FNanchor_86-2_34" id="FNanchor_86-2_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_86-2_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Harsnett himself after his first +onslaught did not re-enter the contest. The semi-official +character of his writing rendered it unnecessary to +refute the statements of a convicted man. At any rate, +he was soon occupied with another production of similar +aim. In 1602 Bishop Bancroft was busily collecting +the materials, in the form of sworn statements, for the +exposure of Catholic pretenders. He turned the material +over to his chaplain. Whether the several examinations +of Roman exorcists and their subjects were +the result of a new interest in exposing exorcism on +the part of the powers which had sent Darrel to prison, +or whether they were merely a phase of increased vigilance +against the activity of the Roman priests, we cannot +be sure. The first conclusion does not seem improbable. +Be that as it may, the court of high com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>mission +got hold of evidence enough to justify the privy +council in authorizing a full publication of the testimony.<a name="FNanchor_87-1_35" id="FNanchor_87-1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_87-1_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +Harsnett was deputed to write the account +of the Catholic exorcists which was brought out in +1603 under the title of <i>A Declaration of Egregious +Popish Impostures</i>. We have not the historical materials +with which to verify the claims made in the book. +On the face of it the case against the Roman priests +looks bad. A mass of examinations was printed which +seem to show that the Jesuit Weston and his confreres +in England had been guilty of a great deal of +jugglery and pretence. The Jesuits, however, were +wiser in their generation than the Puritans and had +not made charges of witchcraft. For that reason their +performances may be passed over.</p> + +<p>Neither the pretences of the Catholics nor the refutation +of them are very important for our purposes. +The exposure of John Darrel was of significance, because +it involved the guilt or innocence of the women +he accused as witches, as well as because the ecclesiastical +authorities took action against him and thereby +levelled a blow directly at exorcism and possession<a name="FNanchor_87-2_36" id="FNanchor_87-2_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_87-2_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> and +indirectly at loose charges of witchcraft. Harsnett's +books were the outcome of this affair and the ensuing +exposures of the Catholics, and they were more sig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>nificant +than anything that had gone before. The +Church of England had not committed itself very +definitely on witchcraft, but its spokesman in the attack +upon the Catholic pretenders took no uncertain +ground. He was skeptical not only about exorcism but +about witchcraft as well. It is refreshing and inspiriting +to read his hard-flung and pungent words. +"Out of these," he wrote, "is shaped us the true <i>Idea</i> +of a Witch, an old weather-beaten Croane, having her +chinne and her knees meeting for age, walking like a +bow leaning on a shaft, hollow-eyed, untoothed, furrowed +on her face, having her lips trembling with the +palsie, going mumbling in the streetes, one that hath +forgotten her <i>pater noster</i>, and hath yet a shrewd +tongue in her head, to call a drab, a drab. If shee have +learned of an olde wife in a chimnies end: <i>Pax, max, +fax</i>, for a spel: or can say <i>Sir John of Grantams</i> curse, +for the Millers Eeles, that were stolne: ... Why then +ho, beware, looke about you my neighbours; if any of +you have a sheepe sicke of the giddies, or an hogge of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>the mumps, or an horse of the staggers, or a knavish +boy of the schoole, or an idle girle of the wheele, or a +young drab of the sullens, and hath not fat enough for +her porredge, nor her father and mother butter enough +for their bread; and she have a little helpe of the +<i>Mother</i>, <i>Epilepsie</i>, or <i>Cramp</i>, ... and then with-all +old mother <i>Nobs</i> hath called her by chaunce 'idle young +huswife,' or bid the devil scratch her, then no doubt +but mother <i>Nobs</i> is the witch.... <i>Horace</i> the Heathen +spied long agoe, that a Witch, a Wizard, and a Conjurer +were but bul-beggers to scare fooles.... And +<i>Geoffry Chaucer</i>, who had his two eyes, wit, and learning +in his head, spying that all these brainlesse imaginations +of witchings, possessings, house-hanting, and +the rest, were the forgeries, cosenages, Imposturs, and +legerdemaine of craftie priests, ... writes in good +plaine terms."<a name="FNanchor_89-1_37" id="FNanchor_89-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_89-1_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>It meant a good deal that Harsnett took such a stand. +Scot had been a voice crying in the wilderness. Harsnett +was supported by the powers in church and state. +He was, as has been seen, the chaplain of Bishop Bancroft,<a name="FNanchor_89-2_38" id="FNanchor_89-2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_89-2_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> +now—from 1604—to become Archbishop of +Canterbury. He was himself to become eminent in +English history as master of Pembroke Hall (Cambridge), +vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, +Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Norwich, and Arch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>bishop +of York.<a name="FNanchor_90-1_39" id="FNanchor_90-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Whatever support he had at the +time—and it is very clear that he had the backing of +the English church on the question of exorcism—his +later position and influence must have given great +weight not only to his views on exorcism but to his +skepticism about witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_90-2_40" id="FNanchor_90-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-2_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>His opinions on the subject, so far as can be judged +by his few direct statements and by implications, were +quite as radical as those of his predecessor.<a name="FNanchor_90-3_41" id="FNanchor_90-3_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-3_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> As a +matter of fact he was a man who read widely<a name="FNanchor_90-4_42" id="FNanchor_90-4_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-4_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> and +had pondered deeply on the superstition, but his thought +had been colored by Scot.<a name="FNanchor_90-5_43" id="FNanchor_90-5_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_90-5_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> His assault, however, was +less direct and studied than that of his master. Scot +was a man of uncommonly serious temperament, a +plain, blunt-spoken, church-going Englishman who +covered the whole ground of superstition without +turning one phrase less serious than another. His pupil, +if so Harsnett may be called, wrote earnestly, even ag<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>gressively, +but with a sarcastic and bitter humor that +entertained the reader and was much less likely to convince. +The curl never left his lips. If at times a smile +appeared, it was but an accented sneer. A writer with +a feeling indeed for the delicate effects of word combination, +if his humor had been less chilled by hate, if +his wit had been of a lighter and more playful vein, +he might have laughed superstition out of England. +When he described the dreadful power of holy water +and frankincense and the book of exorcisms "to scald, +broyle and sizzle the devil," or "the dreadful power of +the crosse and sacrament of the altar to torment the +devill and to make him roare," or "the astonishable +power of nicknames, reliques and asses ears,"<a name="FNanchor_91-1_44" id="FNanchor_91-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_91-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> he +revealed a faculty of fun-making just short of effective +humor.</p> + +<p>It would not be fair to leave Harsnett without a +word on his place as a writer. In point of literary distinction +his prose style maintains a high level. In the +use of forceful epithet and vivid phrase he is excelled +by no Elizabethan prose writer. Because his writings +deal so largely with dry-as-dust reports of examinations, +they have never attained to that position in English +literature which parts of them merit.<a name="FNanchor_91-2_45" id="FNanchor_91-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_91-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>Harsnett's book was the last chapter in the story of +Elizabethan witchcraft and exorcism. It is hardly too +much to say that it was the first chapter in the literary +exploitation of witchcraft. Out of the <i>Declaration</i> +Shakespeare and Ben Jonson mined those ores which +when fused and refined by imagination and fancy +were shaped into the shining forms of art. Shake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>spearean +scholars have pointed out the connection between +the dramatist and the exposer of exorcism. It +has indeed been suggested by one student of Shakespeare +that the great playwright was lending his aid by +certain allusions in <i>Twelfth Night</i> to Harsnett's attempts +to pour ridicule on Puritan exorcism.<a name="FNanchor_92-1_46" id="FNanchor_92-1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_92-1_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> It would +be hard to say how much there is in this suggestion. +About Ben Jonson we can speak more certainly. It is +clearly evident that he sneered at Darrel's pretended +possessions. In the third scene of the fifth act of <i>The +Devil is an Ass</i> he makes Mere-craft say:</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 40%;"><div class="poem"> +It is the easiest thing, Sir, to be done.<br /> +As plaine as fizzling: roule but wi' your eyes,<br /> +And foame at th' mouth. A little castle-soape<br /> +Will do 't, to rub your lips: And then a nutshell,<br /> +With toe and touchwood in it to spit fire,<br /> +Did you ner'e read, Sir, little <i>Darrel's</i> tricks,<br /> +With the boy o' <i>Burton</i>, and the 7 in <i>Lancashire</i>,<br /> +Sommers at <i>Nottingham</i>? All these do teach it.<br /> +And wee'l give out, Sir, that your wife ha's bewitch'd you.<br /> +</div></div> + +<p>This is proof enough, not only that Jonson was in +sympathy with the Anglican assailants of Puritan exorcism, +but that he expected to find others of like opinion +among those who listened to his play. And it was +not unreasonable that he should expect this. It is clear +enough that the powers of the Anglican church were +behind Harsnett and that their influence gave his views +weight. We have already observed that there were +some evidences in the last part of Elizabeth's reign of +a reaction against witch superstition. Harsnett's +book, while directed primarily against exorcism, is +nevertheless another proof of that reaction.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74-1_1" id="Footnote_74-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Sir George Peckham of Denham near Uxbridge and Lord Vaux of +Hackney were two of the most prominent Catholics who opened their +homes for these performances. See Samuel Harsnett, <i>Declaration of +Egregious Popish Impostures</i> (London, 1603), 7, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74-2_2" id="Footnote_74-2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74-2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> For a discussion of the Catholic exorcists see T. G. Law, "Devil +Hunting in Elizabethan England," in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i> for March, +1894. Peckham's other activities in behalf of his church are discussed +by Dr. R. B. Merriman in "Some Notes on the Treatment of English +Catholics in the Reign of Elizabeth," in the <i>Am. Hist. Rev.</i>, April, 1908. +Dr. Merriman errs, however, in supposing that John Darrel cooperated +with Weston and the Catholic exorcists; <i>ibid.</i>, note 51. Darrel was a +Puritan and had nothing to do with the Catholic performances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75-1_3" id="Footnote_75-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It is quite possible to suppose, however, that its course would have +been run in much the same way at a later time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75-2_4" id="Footnote_75-2_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-2_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> For Harsnett's account of Katherine Wright see his <i>Discovery of +the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel</i> (London, 1599), 297-315. For +Darrel's story see <i>The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences +against Allegations ...</i> (1599), 15-21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75-3_5" id="Footnote_75-3_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-3_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 310.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75-4_6" id="Footnote_75-4_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75-4_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Katherine Wright's evil spirit returned later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76-1_7" id="Footnote_76-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> "I have seene her begging at our doore," he declared, "as for +her name I know it not."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77-1_8" id="Footnote_77-1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77-1_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 41, 265, deals briefly with the Darling case and +Alse Gooderidge. See also John Darrel, <i>A Detection of that sinnful, +shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet</i> (1600), +38-40. But the fullest account is a pamphlet at the Lambeth Palace +library. It is entitled <i>The most wonderfull and true Storie of a certaine +Witch named Alse Gooderidge of Stapenhill.... As also a true Report +of the strange Torments of Thomas Darling....</i> (London, 1597). For +a discussion of this pamphlet see appendix A, § 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77-2_9" id="Footnote_77-2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77-2_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The boy was visited by a stranger who tried to persuade him that +there were no witches. But this Derbyshire disciple of Scot had come +to the wrong place and his efforts were altogether useless.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78-1_10" id="Footnote_78-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78-1_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Meantime her mother Elizabeth Wright was also being worried. She +was found on her knees in prayer. No doubt the poor woman was taking +this method of alleviating her distress; but her devotion was interpreted +as worship of the Devil.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78-2_11" id="Footnote_78-2_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78-2_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> So Darrel says. The pamphleteer Denison, who put together the +story of Alse Gooderidge, wrote "she should have been executed but +that her spirit killed her in prison."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78-3_12" id="Footnote_78-3_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78-3_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Darrel gives an extended account of this affair in <i>A True Narration +of the strange and grevous Vexation by the Devil of seven persons in +Lancashire</i> (1600; reprinted in <i>Somers Tracts</i>, III), 170-179. See also +George More, <i>A true Discourse concerning the certaine possession and +dispossession of 7 persons in one familie in Lancashire ...</i> (1600), 9 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79-1_13" id="Footnote_79-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79-1_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Certain matters in connection with this case are interesting. George +More tells us that Mrs. Starchie was an "inheritrix." Some of her kindred, +Papists, prayed for the perishing of her issue. Four of her children +pined away. Mrs. Starchie, when told of their prayers, conveyed all +her property to her husband. She had two children afterwards, the two +that were stricken. It is possible that all this may present some key +to the case, but it is hard to see just how. See More, <i>A true Discourse</i>, +11-12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79-2_14" id="Footnote_79-2_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79-2_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> George More, <i>A true Discourse</i>, 15; Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 22. While +Dee took no part in the affair except that he "sharply reproved and +straitly examined" Hartley, he lent Mr. Hopwood, the justice of the +peace before whom Hartley was brought, his copy of the book of Wierus, +then the collections of exorcisms known as the <i>Flagellum Dæmonum</i> and +the <i>Fustis Dæmonum</i>, and finally the famous <i>Malleus Maleficarum</i>. See +Dee's <i>Private Diary</i> (Camden Soc., London, 1843), entries for March +19, April 15, and August 6, 1597.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80-1_15" id="Footnote_80-1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80-1_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> George More, <i>A true Discourse</i>, 21; Darrel, <i>A True Narration</i> +(<i>Somers Tracts</i>, III), 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81-1_16" id="Footnote_81-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, tells us that "certain Seminarie priests" got +hold of her and carried her up and down the country and thereby +"wonne great credit."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81-2_17" id="Footnote_81-2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81-2_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Darrel's account of this affair is in <i>A True Narration</i> (<i>Somers +Tracts</i>, III), 179-186. Harsnett takes it up in his <i>Discovery</i>, 78-264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82-1_18" id="Footnote_82-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See deposition of Cooper, in Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82-2_19" id="Footnote_82-2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82-2_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Depositions of Somers and Darrel, <i>ibid.</i>, 124-125. It must be recalled +that when this was first tried before a commission they were +convinced that it was not imposture. A layman cannot refrain from +suspecting that Darrel had hypnotic control over Somers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82-3_20" id="Footnote_82-3_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82-3_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 141-142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82-4_21" id="Footnote_82-4_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82-4_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 141. Harsnett quotes Darrel for this statement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83-1_22" id="Footnote_83-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 5; John Darrel, <i>An Apologie, or defence of the possession of +William Sommers ...</i> (1599?), L verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83-2_23" id="Footnote_83-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Darrel, <i>A True Narration</i> (<i>Somers Tracts</i>, III), 184; see also his +<i>A brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers ...</i> (1599), +17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83-3_24" id="Footnote_83-3_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-3_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83-4_25" id="Footnote_83-4_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-4_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83-5_26" id="Footnote_83-5_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83-5_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 8; Darrel, <i>An Apologie, or defence</i>, 4; Darrel, <i>A True Narration</i> +(<i>Somers Tracts</i>, III), 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84-1_27" id="Footnote_84-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Triall of Maist. Dorrel</i>, narrative in back of pamphlet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84-2_28" id="Footnote_84-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Darrel, <i>A Detection of that sinnful ... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, +40. And see above, p. 56, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84-3_29" id="Footnote_84-3_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84-3_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84-4_30" id="Footnote_84-4_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84-4_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 320-322; Darrel, <i>An Apologie, or defence</i>, L III, says that +the third jury acquitted her. Harsnett refers to the fact that he was +found guilty by the grand inquest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84-5_31" id="Footnote_84-5_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84-5_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>The Triall of Maist. Dorrel</i>, preface "To the Reader."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85-1_32" id="Footnote_85-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Discovery</i>, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86-1_33" id="Footnote_86-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86-1_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 78-98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86-2_34" id="Footnote_86-2_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86-2_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Yet Darrel must have realized that he had the worst of it. There is +a pathetic acknowledgment of this in the "Preface to the Reader" +of his publication, <i>A Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses, written +by John Deacon and John Walker ...</i> (1602): "But like a tried +and weather-beaten bird [I] wish for quiet corner to rest myself in and +to drye my feathers in the warme sun."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87-1_35" id="Footnote_87-1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87-1_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> T. G. Law, "Devil Hunting in Elizabethan England," in <i>Nineteenth +Century</i>, March, 1894.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87-2_36" id="Footnote_87-2_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87-2_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> On the matter of exorcism the position of the Church of England +became fixed by 1604. The question had been a cause of disagreement +among the leaders of the Reformation. The Lutherans retained exorcism +in the baptismal ritual and rivalled the Roman clergy in their exorcism +of the possessed. It was just at the close of the sixteenth century +that there arose in Lutheran Germany a hot struggle between the believers +in exorcism and those who would oust it as a superstition. The +Swiss and Genevan reformers, unlike Luther, had discarded exorcism, +declaring it to have belonged only to the early church, and charging +modern instances to Papist fraud; and with them seem to have agreed +their South German friends. In England baptismal exorcism was at first +retained in the ritual under Edward VI, but in 1552, under Bucer's +influence, it was dropped. Under Elizabeth the yet greater influence of +Zurich and Geneva must have discredited all exorcism, and one finds +abundant evidence of this in the writings of Jewel and his followers. +An interesting letter of Archbishop Parker in 1574 shows his utter +incredulity as to possession in the case of Agnes Bridges and Rachel +Pinder of Lothbury; see Parker's <i>Correspondence</i> (Parker Soc., Cambridge, +1856), 465-466. His successor, the Calvinistic Whitgift, was +almost certainly of the same mind. Bancroft, the next archbishop of +Canterbury, drew up or at least inspired that epoch-making body of +canons enacted by Convocation in the spring of 1604, the 72d article of +which forbids any Anglican clergyman, without the express consent of +his bishop obtained beforehand, to use exorcism in any fashion under +any pretext, on pain of being counted an impostor and deposed from +the ministry. This ended the matter so far as the English church was +concerned. For this résumé of the Protestant and the Anglican attitude +toward exorcism I am indebted to Professor Burr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89-1_37" id="Footnote_89-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89-1_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures</i> (London, +1605), 136-138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89-2_38" id="Footnote_89-2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89-2_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> It is not impossible that Harsnett was acting as a mouth-piece for +Bancroft. Darrel wrote: "There is no doubt but that S. H. stand for +Samuell Harsnet, chapline to the Bishop of London, but whither he +alone, or his lord and hee, have discovered this counterfeyting and cosonage +there is the question. Some thinke the booke to be the Bishops owne +doing: and many thinke it to be the joynt worke of them both." <i>A +Detection of that sinnful ... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 7, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90-1_39" id="Footnote_90-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> From 1602 until 1609 he was archdeacon of Essex; see <i>Victoria +History of Essex</i>, II, (London, 1907), 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90-2_40" id="Footnote_90-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-2_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> There is a statement by the Reverend John Swan, who wrote in +1603, that Harsnett's book had been put into the hands of King James, +presumably after his coming to England; see John Swan, <i>A True and +Breife Report of Mary Glover's Vexation, and of her deliverance ...</i> +(1603), "Dedication to the King," 3. One could wish for some confirmation +of this statement. Certainly James would not at that time have +sympathized with Harsnett's views about witches, but his attitude on +several occasions toward those supposed to be possessed by evil spirits +would indicate that he may very well have been influenced by a reading +of the <i>Discovery</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90-3_41" id="Footnote_90-3_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-3_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> On page 36 of the <i>Discovery</i> Harsnett wrote: "Whether witches can +send devils into men and women (as many doe pretende) is a question +amongst those that write of such matters, and the learneder and sounder +sort doe hold the negative." One does not need to read far in Harsnett +to understand what he thought.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90-4_42" id="Footnote_90-4_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-4_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> His scholarship, evident from his books, is attested by Thomas +Fuller, who calls him "a man of great learning, strong parts, and stout +spirit" (<i>Worthies of England</i>, ed. of London, 1840, I, 507).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90-5_43" id="Footnote_90-5_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90-5_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See his <i>Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures</i>, 134-136; his +<i>Discovery</i> also shows the use of Scot.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91-1_44" id="Footnote_91-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Harsnett, <i>Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures</i>, 98, 123, 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91-2_45" id="Footnote_91-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Read <i>ibid.</i>, 131-140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92-1_46" id="Footnote_92-1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92-1_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Joseph Hunter, <i>New Illustrations of the Life, Studies and Writings +of Shakespeare</i> (London, 1845), I, 380-390.</p></div> + + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">James I and Witchcraft.</h3> + + +<p>Some one has remarked that witchcraft came into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +England with the Stuarts and went out with them. +This offhand way of fixing the rise and fall of a movement +has just enough truth about it to cause misconception. +Nothing is easier than to glance at the alarms +of Elizabeth's reign and to see in them accidental outbreaks +with little meaning, isolated affairs presaging +a new movement rather than part of it. As a matter +of fact, any such view is superficial. In previous chapters +the writer has endeavored to show just how foreign +ideas and conditions at home gave the impulse +to a movement which within a single reign took very +definite form.</p> + +<p>Yet so much was the movement accelerated, such +additional impetus was given it by James I, that the +view that James set the superstition going in England, +however superficial, has some truth in it. If Elizabeth +had ever given the matter thought, she had not at least +given it many words. James had very definite opinions +on the subject and hesitated not at all to make them +known. His views had weight. It is useless to deny +that the royal position swayed the courts. James's part +in the witch persecution cannot be condoned, save on +the ground that he was perfectly honest. He felt +deeply on the matter. It was little wonder. He had +grown up in Scotland in the very midst of the witch +alarms. His own life, he believed, had been imperilled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +by the machinations of witches. He believed he had +every reason to fear and hate the creatures, and we can +only wonder that he was so moderate as we shall later +find him to have been. The story of the affair that +stirred up the Scottish king and his people has often been +told, but it must be included here to make his attitude +explicable. In 1589 he had arranged for a marriage +with the Princess Anne of Denmark. The marriage +had been performed by proxy in July, and it was then +provided that the princess was to come to England. +She set out, but was driven on to the coast of Norway +by a violent storm, and detained there by the continuance +of the storms. James sailed to Upsala, and, after +a winter in the north of the Continent, brought his +bride to Scotland in the spring, not without encountering +more rough weather. To the people of the time +it was quite clear that the ocean was unfriendly to +James's alliance. Had Scotland been ancient Greece, +no doubt Neptune would have been propitiated by a +sacrifice. But it was Scotland, and the ever-to-be-feared +Satan was not so easily propitiated. He had +been very active of late in the realm.</p> + +<p>Moreover it was a time when Satanic and other conspiracies +were likely to come to light. The kingdom +was unsettled, if not discontented. There were plots, and +rumors of plots. The effort to expose them, as well +as to thwart the attacks of the evil one on the king, +led to the conception and spread of the monstrous story +of the conspiracy of Dr. Fian. Dr. Fian was nothing +less than a Scottish Dr. Faustus. He was a schoolmaster +by profession. After a dissolute youth he was said +to have given soul to the Devil. According to the story +he gathered around him a motley crowd, Catholic women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +of rank, "wise women," and humble peasant people; +but it was a crew ready for evil enterprise. It is not +very clear why they were supposed to have attacked +the king; perhaps because of his well known piety, +perhaps because he was a Protestant. In any case they +set about, as the story went, to destroy him, and thought +to have found their opportunity in his trip to Denmark. +They would drown him in a storm at sea. There was +a simple expedient for raising a storm, the throwing of +cats into the sea. This Scottish method of sacrificing +to Neptune was duly carried out, and, as we have seen, +just fell short of destroying the king. It was only the +piety of the king, as Dr. Fian admitted in his confession, +that overmatched the power of the evil one.<a name="FNanchor_95-1_1" id="FNanchor_95-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_95-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Such is the story that stirred Scotland from end to +end. It is a story that is easily explained. The confessions +were wrung from the supposed conspirators +by the various forms of torture "lately provided for +witches in that country." Geillis Duncane had been +tried with "the torture of the pilliwinkes upon her +fingers, which is a grievous torture, and binding or +wrinching her head with a cord or roape." Agnes +Sampson had suffered terrible tortures and shameful +indignities until her womanly modesty could no longer +endure it and she confessed "whatsoever was demanded +of her." Dr. Fian was put through the or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>dinary +forms of torture and was then "put to the most +severe and cruel pain in the world, called the bootes," +and thereby was at length induced to break his silence +and to incriminate himself. At another time, when the +king, who examined him in person, saw that the man +was stubborn and denied the confessions already made, +he ordered him to be tortured again. His finger nails +were pulled off with a pair of pincers, and under what +was left of them needles were inserted "up to the +heads." This was followed by other tortures too terrible +to narrate.<a name="FNanchor_96-1_2" id="FNanchor_96-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_96-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>It is a little hard to understand how it was that the +king "took great delight to be present at the examinations," +but throughout the whole wretched series of +trials he was never wanting in zeal. When Barbara +Napier, sister-in-law to the laird of Carshoggil, was to +be executed, a postponement had been granted on account +of her approaching accouchement. Afterwards, +"nobody insisting in the pursute of her, she was set at +libertie." It seems also that the jury that had before +condemned her had acquitted her of the main charge, +that of treasonable witchcraft against the king. The +king was angered at the default of justice, went to the +Tolbooth, and made an address on the subject. He +spoke of "his own impartiality, the use of witchcraft, +the enormity of the crime, ... the ignorance of thinking +such matters mere fantasies, the cause of his own +interference in the matter, the ignorance of the assizes +in the late trial, his own opinion of what witches really +are."<a name="FNanchor_96-2_3" id="FNanchor_96-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_96-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p><p>It was only a few years later that James put that +opinion into written form. All the world knows that +the king was a serious student. With unremitting zeal +he studied this matter, and in 1597, seven years after +the Dr. Fian affair, he published his <i>Dæmonologie</i>.<a name="FNanchor_97-1_4" id="FNanchor_97-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_97-1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It +was expressly designed to controvert the "damnable +opinions of two principally in our age"—Scot, who +"is not ashamed in publick Print to deny that there +can be such a thing as witchcraft," and Wierus, "a +German physician," who "sets out a publicke apologie +for all these craft-folkes whereby ... he plainly bewrayes +himself to have been one of that profession."</p> + +<p>It was to be expected that James would be an exponent +of the current system of belief. He had read +diligently, if not widely, in the Continental lore of the +subject and had assimilated much of it. He was Scotch +enough to be interested in theology and Stuart enough +to have very definite opinions. James had, too, his +own way of putting things. There was a certain freshness +about his treatment, in spite of the fact that he was +ploughing old fields. Nothing illustrates better his combination +of adherence to tradition, of credulity, and of +originality than his views on the transportation of +witches, a subject that had long engaged the theorists +in demonology. Witches could be transported, he believed, +by natural means, or they could be carried +through the air "by the force of the spirit which is +their conducter," as Habakkuk was carried by the +angel.<a name="FNanchor_97-2_5" id="FNanchor_97-2_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_97-2_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This much he could accept. But that they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>could be transformed into a "little beast or foule" +and pierce through "whatsoever house or Church, +though all ordinarie passages be closed," this he +refused to believe. So far, however, there was nothing +original about either his belief or his disbelief. But +his suggestion on another matter was very probably his +own. There had been long discussion as to how far +through the air witches could go. It was James's +opinion that they could go only so far as they could +retain their breath.</p> + +<p>But it was seldom that the royal demonologist wandered +far from the beaten road. He was a conformist +and he felt that the orthodox case needed defence: so +he set about to answer the objectors. To the argument +that it was a strange thing that witches were melancholy +and solitary women (and so, he would have explained, +offer the easiest object of attack) he interposed a flat +denial: they are "some of them rich and worldly-wise, +some of them fat or corpulent in their bodies." +To the point that if witches had the power ascribed to +them no one but themselves would be left alive in the +world, he answered that such would be the case, were +not the power of the Devil bridled by God. To the +plea that God would not allow his children to be vexed +by the Devil, he replied that God permits the godly +who are sleeping in sin to be troubled; that He even +allows the Evil One to vex the righteous for his own +good—a conventional argument that has done service +in many a theological controversy.</p> + +<p>It is a curious circumstance that James seemingly +recognized the reliability of the Romish exorcisms +which the Church of England was about that time beginning +to attack. His explanation of them is worthy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +of "the wisest fool in Christendom." The Papists +could often effect cures of the possessed, he thought, +because "the divell is content to release the bodily +hurting of them, ... thereby to obtain the perpetual +hurt of the soules."</p> + +<p>That James should indulge in religious disquisitions +rather than in points of evidence was to be expected. +Although he had given up the Scottish theology, he +never succeeded in getting it thoroughly out of his system. +As to the evidence against the accused, the royal +writer was brief. Two sorts of evidence he thought +of value, one "the finding of their marke, and the +trying the insensiblenes thereof, the other is their fleeting +[floating] on the water." The latter sign was based, +he said, on the fact that the water refuses to receive +a witch—that is to say, the pure element would refuse +to receive those who had renounced their baptism.<a name="FNanchor_99-1_6" id="FNanchor_99-1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_99-1_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +We shall see that the influence of the <i>Dæmonologie</i> can +be fairly appraised by measuring the increased use of +these two tests of guilt within his own reign and that of +his son. Hitherto the evidence of the mark had been of +rather less importance, while the ordeal by water was +not in use.</p> + +<p>The alleged witch-mark on the body had to do with +the contracts between witches and the Devil. This +loathsome side of witch belief we cannot go into. Suffice +it to say that James insisted on the reality of these +contracts and consequently upon the punishment that +should be meted to those who had entered into them. +All witches except children should be sentenced to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>death. The king shows a trace of conventional moderation, +however, and admits that the magistrates +should be careful whom they condemned. But, while +he holds that the innocent should not be condemned, +he warns officials against the sin of failing to convict +the guilty.<a name="FNanchor_100-1_7" id="FNanchor_100-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_100-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> We shall see that throughout his reign in +England he pursued a course perfectly consistent with +these principles.</p> + +<p>A critical estimate of James's book it is somewhat +hard to give. Students of witchcraft have given utterance +to the most extravagant but widely divergent +opinions upon it. The writer confesses that he has +not that acquaintance with the witch literature of the +Continent which would enable him to appraise the +<i>Dæmonologie</i> as to its originality. So good an authority +as Thomas Wright has declared that it is "much +inferior to the other treatises on the subject," and that +it was compiled from foreign works.<a name="FNanchor_100-2_8" id="FNanchor_100-2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_100-2_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Doubtless a +study of the Continental literature would warrant, at +least in part, this opinion. Yet one gets the impression, +from what may be learned of that great body of writing +through the historians of witchcraft, that James's +opinions were in some respects his own. He had, of +course, absorbed the current belief, but he did not hesitate +to give his own interpretation and explanation of +phenomena. That interpretation is not wanting in +shrewdness. It seems to one who has wandered through +many tedious defences of the belief in witchcraft that +James's work is as able as any in English prior to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>time of Joseph Glanvill in 1668. One who should read +Glanvill and James together would get a very satisfactory +understanding of the position of the defenders +of the superstition. Glanvill insisted upon what he believed +were well authenticated facts of experience. +James grounded his belief upon a course of theoretical +reasoning.</p> + +<p>We have already indicated that James's book was +influential in its time. It goes without saying that +his position as a sovereign greatly enhanced its influence. +This was particularly true after he took the +throne of England. The dicta that emanated from +the executive of the English nation could not fail to +find a wide audience, and especially in England itself. +His work offered a text-book to officials. It was +a key to the character and methods of the new ruler, +and those who hoped for promotion were quick to +avail themselves of it. To prosecute witches was to +win the sovereign's approval. The judges were +prompted to greater activity. Moreover, the sanction +of royalty gave to popular outbreaks against suspicious +women greater consideration at the hands of the gentry. +And it was in the last analysis the gentry, in the +persons of the justices of the peace, who decided +whether or no neighborhood whispering and rumors +should be followed up.</p> + +<p>But the king's most direct influence was in the passing +of a new law. His first Parliament had been in +session but eight days when steps were taken by the +House of Lords towards strengthening the statute +against witchcraft. The law in force, passed in the +fifth year of Elizabeth's reign, imposed the death penalty +for killing by witchcraft, and a year's imprison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>ment +for injuring by witchcraft or by allied means. +James would naturally feel that this law was merely +one version of the statute against murder and did not +touch the horrible crime of contract with the Devil +and the keeping of imps.<a name="FNanchor_102-1_9" id="FNanchor_102-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_102-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Here was a sin beside which +the taking of life was a light offence. It was needful +that those who were guilty of it should suffer the severest +penalty of the law, even if they had not caused +the loss of a single life. It was to remedy this defect +in the criminal code that a new statute was introduced.</p> + +<p>It is not worth while to trace the progress of that +bill from day to day. It can be followed in the journals +of the Lords and Commons. The bill went to a large +committee that included six earls and twelve bishops.<a name="FNanchor_102-2_10" id="FNanchor_102-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_102-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +Perhaps the presence of the bishops was an evidence +that witchcraft was still looked upon as a sin rather +than as a crime. It was a matter upon which the opinion +of the church had been received before and might +well be accepted again. It was further arranged that +the Lord Chief-Justice of the common pleas, Sir Edmund +Anderson, and the attorney-general, the later so +famous Sir Edward Coke, along with other eminent +jurists, were to act with the committee. Anderson, it +will be recalled, had presided over numerous trials and +had both condemned and released witches. As to +Coke's attitude towards this subject, we know not a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>thing, save that he served on this committee. The +committee seems to have found enough to do. At any +rate the proposed statute underwent revision.<a name="FNanchor_103-1_11" id="FNanchor_103-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_103-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Doubtless +the privy council had a hand in the matter;<a name="FNanchor_103-2_12" id="FNanchor_103-2_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_103-2_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> indeed +it is not unlikely that the bill was drawn up under +its direction. On the 9th of June, about two months and +a half after its introduction, the statute passed its final +reading in the Lords.<a name="FNanchor_103-3_13" id="FNanchor_103-3_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_103-3_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> It repealed the statute of Elizabeth's +reign and provided that any one who "shall +use, practise or exercise any Invocation or Conjuration +of any evill and wicked Spirit, or shall consult, covenant +with, entertaine, employe, feede, or rewarde any +evill and wicked Spirit to or for any intent or purpose; +or take up any dead man, woman, or child, ... to be imployed +or used in any manner of Witchcrafte" should +suffer death as a felon. It further provided that any one +who should "take upon him or them by Witchcrafte ... +to tell or declare in what place any treasure of +Golde or Silver should or might be founde ... or +where Goods or Things loste or stollen should be +founde or become, or to the intent to provoke any +person to unlawfull love, or wherebie any Cattell or +Goods of any person shall be destroyed, wasted, or +impaired, or to hurte or destroy any person in his or her +bodie, although the same be not effected and done," +should for the first offence suffer one year's imprisonment +with four appearances in the pillory, and for the +second offence, death. The law explains itself. Not +only the killing of people by the use of evil spirits, but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>even the using of evil spirits in such a way as actually +to cause hurt was a capital crime. The second clause +punished white magic and the intent to hurt, even where +it "be not effected," by a year's imprisonment and the +pillory. It can be easily seen that one of the things +which the framers of the statute were attempting to +accomplish in their somewhat awkward wording was +to make the fact of witchcraft as a felony depend +chiefly upon a single form of evidence, the testimony +to the use of evil spirits.</p> + +<p>We have seen why people with James's convictions +about contracts with the Devil might desire to rest +the crime upon this kind of proof.<a name="FNanchor_104-1_14" id="FNanchor_104-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_104-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> It can be readily +understood, too, how the statute would work in practice. +Hitherto it had been possible to arraign a witch +on the accusations of her neighbors, but it was not possible +to send her to the gallows unless some death in +the vicinity could be laid to her charge. The community +that hustled a suspicious woman to court was +likely to suffer the expense of her imprisonment for a +year. It had no assurance that it could be finally rid of +her.</p> + +<p>Under the new statute it was only necessary to prove +that the woman made use of evil spirits, and she was +put out of the way. It was a simpler thing to charge +a woman with keeping a "familiar" than to accuse +her of murder. The stories that the village gossips +gathered in their rounds had the keeping of "fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>miliars" +for their central interest.<a name="FNanchor_105-1_15" id="FNanchor_105-1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_105-1_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> It was only necessary +to produce a few of these gossips in court and the +woman was doomed.</p> + +<p>To be sure, this is theory. The practical question is, +not how would the law operate, but how did it operate? +This brings us again into the dangerous field of statistics. +Now, if we may suppose that the witch cases +known to us are a safe basis of comparison, the reign +of James, as has already been intimated, shows a notable +increase in witch executions over that of Elizabeth. +We have records of between forty and fifty people who +suffered for the crime during the reign of James, all but +one of them within the first fifteen years. It will be +seen that the average per year is nearly double that of +the executions known to us in the first part of Elizabeth's +rule, and of course several times that of those +known in the last part. This increased number we +are at once inclined to assign to the direct and indirect +influence of the new king. But it may very fairly be +asked whether the new statute passed at the king's +suggestion had not been in part responsible for the increased +number. This question can be answered from +an examination of those cases where we have the +charges given. Of thirty-seven such cases in the reign +of James I, where the capital sentence was given, +seventeen were on indictments for witchcrafts that had +not caused death. In the other twenty cases, the accused +were charged with murder.<a name="FNanchor_105-2_16" id="FNanchor_105-2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_105-2_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p><p>This means that over two-fifths of those who are +known to have been convicted under the new law would +have escaped death under the Elizabethan statute. +With all due allowance for the incompleteness of our +statistics, it seems certain that the new law had added +very considerably to the number of capital sentences. +Subtract the seventeen death sentences for crimes of +witchcraft that were not murder from the total number +of such sentences, and we have figures not so different +from those of Elizabeth's reign.</p> + +<p>This is a sufficient comment on the effectiveness of +the new law as respects its particularly novel features. +A study of the character of the evidence and of the +tests of guilt employed at the various trials during the +reign will show that the phrasing of the law, as well +as the royal directions for trying guilt, influenced the +forms of accusation and the verdicts of the juries. In +other words the testimony rendered in some of the +well known trials of the reign offers the best commentary +upon the statute as well as upon the <i>Dæmonologie</i>. +This can be illustrated from three of the processes +employed to determine guilt. The king had recommended +the water ordeal. Up to this time it had not +been employed in English witch cases, so far as we +know. The first record of its use was in 1612, nine +years after James ascended the English throne. In +that year there was a "discoverie" of witches at +Northampton. Eight or nine women were accused of +torturing a man and his sister and of laming others. +One of them was, at the command of a justice of the +peace, cast into the water with "her hands and feete +bound," but "could not sink to the bottome by any +meanes." The same experiment was applied to Arthur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +Bill and his parents. He was accused of bewitching a +Martha Aspine. His father and mother had long been +considered witches. But the "matter remaining doubtful +that it could not be cleerly tryed upon him," he (and +his parents) were tied with "their thumbes and great +toes ... acrosse" and thrown into the water. The +suspicion that was before not well grounded was now +confirmed.<a name="FNanchor_107-1_17" id="FNanchor_107-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_107-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> To be sure, this was done by the justices +of the peace and we do not know how much it influenced +the assize court.<a name="FNanchor_107-2_18" id="FNanchor_107-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_107-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>These are the only instances given us by the records +of James's reign where this test was employed by the +authorities. But in the very next year after the Northampton +affair it was used in the adjoining county of +Bedford by private parties. A land-owner who had +suffered ills, as he thought, from two tenants, Mother +Sutton and her daughter, took matters into his own +hands. His men were ordered to strip the two women +"in to their smocks," to tie their arms together, and +to throw them into the water. The precaution of a +"roape tyed about their middles" was useless, for +both floated. This was not enough. The mother, tied +toe and thumb, was thrown into the water again. She +"sunke not at all, but sitting upon the water turned +round about like a wheele.... And then being taken +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>up, she as boldly as if she had beene innocent asked +them if they could doe any more to her."</p> + +<p>The use of marks as evidence was not as new as the +water ordeal. But it is a rather curious thing that in +the two series of cases involving water ordeal the other +process was also emphasized. In these two instances it +would seem as if the advice of the <i>Dæmonologie</i> had +been taken very directly by the accusers.<a name="FNanchor_108-1_19" id="FNanchor_108-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_108-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> There was +one other instance of this test.<a name="FNanchor_108-2_20" id="FNanchor_108-2_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_108-2_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The remarkable +thing, however, is that in the most important trial of +the time, that at Lancaster in 1612, there was an utter +absence, at least so far as the extant record goes, of +female juries or of reports from them.<a name="FNanchor_108-3_21" id="FNanchor_108-3_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_108-3_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> This method +of determining guilt was not as yet widely accepted in +the courts. We can hardly doubt that it had been +definitely forbidden at Lancaster.<a name="FNanchor_108-4_22" id="FNanchor_108-4_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_108-4_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The evidence of the +use of evil spirits, against which the statute of the first +year of James I had been especially framed, was employed +in such a large proportion of trials that it is not +worth while to go over the cases in detail.</p> + +<p>The law forbade to take up any dead person or the +skin, bone, or other part thereof for use in witchcraft. +Presumably some instance of this form of +witchcraft had been responsible for the phrase, but +we have on record no case of the sort until a few +years after the passage of the statute. It was one of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>the principal charges against Johanna Harrison of +Royston in 1606 that the officers found in her possession +"all the bones due to the Anatomy of man and +woman."<a name="FNanchor_109-1_23" id="FNanchor_109-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_109-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> This discovery brought out other charges +and she was hanged. At the famous Lancashire trials +in 1612 the arch-witch Chattox was declared to have +had in her possession three scalps and eight teeth. She +was guilty on other counts, but she escaped the executioner +by death.</p> + +<p>These are illustrations of the point that the <i>Dæmonologie</i> +and the statute of James I find their commentary +in the evidence offered at the trials. It goes without +saying that these illustrations represent only a few +of the forms of testimony given in the courts. It may +not, therefore, be amiss to run over some other specimens +of the proof that characterized the witch trials +of the reign. With most of them we are already familiar. +The requirement that the witch should repeat certain +words after the justice of the peace was used once +in the reign of James. It was an unusual method at +best.<a name="FNanchor_109-2_24" id="FNanchor_109-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_109-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> A commoner form of proof was that adduced +from the finding or seeing clay or waxen images in the +possession of the accused.<a name="FNanchor_109-3_25" id="FNanchor_109-3_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_109-3_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The witness who had +found such a model on the premises of the defendant +or had seen the defendant handling it, jumped readily +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>to the conclusion that the image represented some individual. +If it should be asked how we are to account +for this sort of evidence, the answer is an easy one. +Every now and then in the annals of witchcraft it came +out that a would-be accuser had hidden a waxen or +clay figure in the house of the person he wished to accuse +and had then found it. No doubt some cases started +in this way. No doubt, too, bitter women with grudges +to satisfy did experiment with images and were caught +at it. But this was rare. In the greater number of +cases the stories of images were pure fabrications. To +that category belong almost certainly the tales told at +Lancaster.<a name="FNanchor_110-1_26" id="FNanchor_110-1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_110-1_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>"Spectral evidence" we have met with in the Elizabethan +period. That reign saw two or three instances +of its employment, and there were more examples of it +in the reign of James. Master Avery of Northampton, +who with his sister was the principal accuser in the +trials there, saw in one of his fits a black wart on the +body of Agnes Brown, a wart which was actually found +"upon search."<a name="FNanchor_110-2_27" id="FNanchor_110-2_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_110-2_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Master Avery saw other spectres, +but the most curious was that of a bloody man desiring +him to have mercy on his Mistress Agnes and to cease +impeaching her.<a name="FNanchor_110-3_28" id="FNanchor_110-3_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_110-3_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> At Bedford, Master Enger's servant +had a long story to tell, but the most thrilling part concerned +a visit which the young Mary Sutton (whom +he was accusing) made to him. On a "moonshine +night" she came in at the window in her "accustomed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>and personall habite and shape" and knitted at his +side. Then drawing nearer, she offered him terms by +which he could be restored to his former health, terms +which we are to understand the virtuous witness refused. +It is pleasant to know that Master Enger was +"distrustfull of the truth" of this tale. One fears that +these spectres were not the products of overwrought +imagination, as were many others, but were merely +fabrics of elaborate fiction.<a name="FNanchor_111-1_29" id="FNanchor_111-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_111-1_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> In any case they were +not the groundwork of the proof. In the Fairfax prosecutions +at York in 1622 the charges against the six +women accused rested entirely upon a great tissue +of spectral evidence. The three children had talked +to the spectres, had met them outdoors and at church +and in the kitchen. The spectres were remarkably +wise and named visitors whom the family did not know. +They struggled with the children, they rolled over them +in bed, they followed them to the neighbors.</p> + +<p>Somewhat akin to the evidence from apparitions was +that from the effect of a witch's glance. This is uncommonly +rare in English witchcraft, but the reign of James +offers two instances of it. In Royston, Hertfordshire, +there was "an honest fellow and as boone a +companion ... one that loved the pot with the long +necke almost as well as his prayers." One day when +he was drinking with four companions Johanna Harrison +came in and "stood gloating upon them." He went +home and at once fell sick.<a name="FNanchor_111-2_30" id="FNanchor_111-2_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_111-2_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> At Northampton the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>twelve-year-old Hugh Lucas had looked "stark" upon +Jane Lucas at church and gone into convulsions when +he returned home.<a name="FNanchor_112-1_31" id="FNanchor_112-1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_112-1_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>One other form of proof demands notice. In the +trial of Jennet Preston at York it was testified that the +corpse of Mr. Lister, whom she was believed to have +slain by witchcraft, had bled at her presence. The judge +did not overlook this in summarizing the evidence. It +was one of three important counts against the woman, +indeed it was, says the impressive Mr. Potts, quoting +the judge, of more consequence than all the rest.<a name="FNanchor_112-2_32" id="FNanchor_112-2_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_112-2_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Of +course Mistress Preston went to the gallows.</p> + +<p>It will occur to the reader to ask whether any sort +of evidence was ruled out or objected to. On this +point we have but slight knowledge. In reporting the +trial of Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton in 1621 the +Reverend Henry Goodcole wrote that a piece of thatch +from the accused woman's house was plucked and +burned, whereupon the woman presently came upon +the scene.<a name="FNanchor_112-3_33" id="FNanchor_112-3_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_112-3_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Goodcole characterized this method as an +"old ridiculous custome" and we may guess that he +spoke for the judge too. In the Lancashire cases, Justice +Altham, whose credulity knew hardly any bounds, +grew suddenly "suspitious of the accusation of this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>yong wench, Jennet Device," who had been piling up +charges against Alice Nutter. The girl was sent out +of the room, the witches were mixed up, and Jennet +was required on coming in again to pick out Alice Nutter. +Of course that proved an easy matter.<a name="FNanchor_113-1_34" id="FNanchor_113-1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-1_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> At another +time, when Jennet was glibly enumerating the +witches that had assembled at the great meeting at +Malking Tower, the judge suddenly asked her if Joane-a-Downe +were there. But the little girl failed to rise +to the bait and answered negatively, much to the satisfaction +of everybody, and especially of the righteous +Mr. Potts.<a name="FNanchor_113-2_35" id="FNanchor_113-2_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-2_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>This is all we know directly about any tendency to +question evidence at Lancaster in 1612, but a good deal +more may be inferred from what is not there. A comparison +of that trial with other contemporary trials +will convince any one that Justices Altham and Bromley +must have ruled out certain forms of evidence. There +were no experiments made of any sort nor any female +juries set inspecting.<a name="FNanchor_113-3_36" id="FNanchor_113-3_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_113-3_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> This, indeed, is not to say that +all silly testimony was excluded. There is enough and +more of sheer nonsense in the testimony to prove the +contrary.</p> + +<p>We turn now from the question of evidence to a +brief consideration of several less prominent features +of Jacobean witchcraft. We shall note the character +of the sentences, the distribution of the trials, the personnel +and position in life of the accused, and lastly the +question of jurisdiction.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p><p>We have in another connection indicated the approximate +number of executions of which we have +record in James's reign. That number, we saw, was +certainly over forty and probably approached fifty. +It represented, however, not quite half the total number +of cases of accusation recorded. In consequence +the other verdicts and sentences have significance. Especially +is this true of the acquittals. They amounted +to thirty, perhaps to forty. When we add the trials +of which we do not know the outcome, we can guess +that the number was close to the sum total of executions. +Legally only one other outcome of a trial was possible, +a year's imprisonment with quarterly appearances in +the pillory. There were three or four instances of this +penalty as well as one case where bond of good behavior +was perhaps substituted for imprisonment.<a name="FNanchor_114-1_37" id="FNanchor_114-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-1_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> +Five pardons were issued,<a name="FNanchor_114-2_38" id="FNanchor_114-2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-2_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> three of them by the authorities +at London, two of them by local powers apparently +under compulsion.<a name="FNanchor_114-3_39" id="FNanchor_114-3_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_114-3_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>We come now to consider the personnel, sex, occupations, +and positions in life of the accused. On certain +of these matters it is possible to give statistical conclusions, +but such conclusions must be accepted with +great caution. By a count as careful as the insufficient +evidence permits it would seem that about six times as +many women were indicted as men. This was to be +expected. It is perhaps less in accord with tradition +that twice as many married women as spinsters seem to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>have figured in the witch trials of the Jacobean era. +The proportion of widows to unmarried women was +about the same, so that the proportion of unmarried +women among the whole number accused would seem +to have been small. These results must be accepted +guardedly, yet more complete statistics would probably +show that the proportion of married women was even +greater.<a name="FNanchor_115-1_40" id="FNanchor_115-1_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_115-1_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>The position in life of these people was not unlike +that of the same class in the earlier period. In the +account of the Lancashire trials we shall see that the +two families whose quarrels started the trouble were +the lowest of low hill-country people, beggars and +charmers, lax in their morals and cunning in their dealings. +The Flower women, mother and daughter, had +been charged with evil living; it was said that Agnes +Brown and her daughter of Northampton had very +doubtful reputations; Mother Sutton of Bedford was +alleged to have three illegitimate children. The rest +of the witches of the time were not, however, quite so +low in the scale. They were household servants, poor +tenants, "hog hearders," wives of yeomen, broomsellers, +and what not.</p> + +<p>Above this motley peasant crew were a few of various +higher ranks. A schoolmaster who had experimented +with sorcery against the king,<a name="FNanchor_115-2_41" id="FNanchor_115-2_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_115-2_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> a minister who +had been "busy with conjuration in his youth,"<a name="FNanchor_115-3_42" id="FNanchor_115-3_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_115-3_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>lady charged with sorcery but held for other sin,<a name="FNanchor_116-1_43" id="FNanchor_116-1_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-1_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> a conjurer +who had rendered professional services to a passionate +countess,<a name="FNanchor_116-2_44" id="FNanchor_116-2_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-2_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> these make up a strange group of +witches, and for that matter an unimportant one. None +of their cases were illustrations of the working of +witch law; they were rather stray examples of the connection +between superstition, on the one hand, and +politics and court intrigue on the other. Not so, however, +the prosecution of Alice Nutter in the Lancashire +trials of 1612. Alice Nutter was a member of a well +known county family. "She was," says Potts, "a +rich woman, had a great estate and children of good +hope."<a name="FNanchor_116-3_45" id="FNanchor_116-3_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-3_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> She was moreover "of good temper, free +from envy and malice." In spite of all this she was accused +of the most desperate crimes and went to the +gallows. Why family connections and influences +could not have saved her is a mystery.</p> + +<p>In another connection we spoke of two witches pardoned +by local authorities at the instance of the government. +This brings us to the question of jurisdiction. +The town of Rye had but recently, it would seem, been +granted a charter and certain judicial rights. But when +the town authorities sentenced one woman to death and +indicted another for witchcraft, the Lord Warden interfered +with a question as to their power.<a name="FNanchor_116-4_46" id="FNanchor_116-4_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_116-4_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> The town, +after some correspondence, gave way and both women +were pardoned. This was, however, the only instance +of disputed jurisdiction. The local powers in King's +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>Lynn hanged a witch without interference,<a name="FNanchor_117-1_47" id="FNanchor_117-1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_117-1_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and the +vicar-general of the Bishop of Durham proceeded +against a "common charmer"<a name="FNanchor_117-2_48" id="FNanchor_117-2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_117-2_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> with impunity, as of +course he had every right to do.</p> + +<p>There is, in fact, a shred of evidence to show that +the memory of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had not been +lost. In the North Riding of Yorkshire the quarter +sessions sentenced Ralph Milner for "sorcerie, witchcraft, +inchantment and telling of fortunes" to confess +his fault at divine service, "that he hath heighlie offended +God and deluded men, and is heartily sorie."<a name="FNanchor_117-3_49" id="FNanchor_117-3_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_117-3_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +There is nothing, of course, in the statute to authorize +this form of punishment, and it is only accounted for +as a reversion to the original ecclesiastical penalty for +a crime that seemed to belong in church courts.</p> + +<p>What we call nowadays mob law had not yet made its +appearance—that is, in connection with witchcraft. We +shall see plenty of it when we come to the early part +of the eighteenth century. But there was in 1613 one +significant instance of independence of any jurisdiction, +secular or ecclesiastical. In the famous case at +Bedford, Master Enger, whom we have met before, had +been "damnified" in his property to the round sum of +£200. He was at length persuaded that Mother Sutton +was to blame. Without any authority whatsoever he +brought her forcibly to his house and caused her to +be scratched.<a name="FNanchor_117-4_50" id="FNanchor_117-4_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_117-4_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Not only so, but he threw the woman +and her daughter, tied and bound, into his mill-pond +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>to prove their guilt.<a name="FNanchor_118-1_51" id="FNanchor_118-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_118-1_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> In the mean time the wretched +creatures had been stripped of their clothes and examined +for marks, under whose oversight we are not +told, but Master Enger was responsible. He should +have suffered for all this, but there is no record of his +having done so. On the contrary he carried the prosecution +of the women to a successful issue and saw them +both hanged.</p> + +<p>We now turn to the question of the distribution of +witchcraft in the realm during James's reign. From +the incidental references already given, it will be evident +that the trials were distributed over a wide area. +In number executed, Lancashire led with ten, Leicester +had nine, Northampton five or more, Middlesex +four,<a name="FNanchor_118-2_52" id="FNanchor_118-2_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_118-2_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Bedford, Lincoln, York, Bristol, and Hertford +each two; Derby had several, the exact number we can +not learn. These figures of the more serious trials +seem to show that the alarm was drifting from the +southeast corner of England towards the midlands. In +the last half of Elizabeth's rule the centre had been to +the north of London in the southern midlands. Now +it seems to have progressed to the northern midlands. +Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham may be selected as +the triangle of counties that would fairly represent the +centre of the movement. If the matter were to be +determined with mathematical accuracy, the centre +would need to be placed perhaps a little farther west, +for Stafford, Cheshire, Bristol, and the remote Welsh +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>Carnarvon all experienced witch alarms. In the north, +York and Durham had their share of trials.</p> + +<p>It will be easier to realize what had happened when +we discover that, so far as records go, Kent and Essex +were entirely quiet during the period, and East Anglia +almost so. We shall later see that these counties had +not at all forgotten to believe in witchcraft, but the +witchfinders had ceased their activities for a while.</p> + +<p>To be sure, this reasoning from the distribution of +trials is a dangerous proceeding. Witch alarms, on they +face of things, seem haphazard outbursts of excitement. +And such no doubt they are in part; yet one who +goes over many cases in order cannot fail to observe +that an outbreak in one county was very likely to be +followed by one in the next county.<a name="FNanchor_119-1_53" id="FNanchor_119-1_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_119-1_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> This is perfectly +intelligible to every one familiar with the essentially +contagious character of these scares. The stories +spread from village to village as fast as that personified +Rumor of the poet Vergil, "than which nothing +is fleeter"; nor did they halt with the sheriffs at the +county boundaries.</p> + +<p>We have now traced the growth of James's opinions +until they found effect in English law, have seen the +practical operation of that law, and have gone over +the forms of evidence, as well as some other features +of the witch trials of his reign. In the next chapter we +shall take up some of the more famous Jacobean cases in +detail as examples of witch alarms. We shall seek +to find out how they started and what were the real +causes at work.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95-1_1" id="Footnote_95-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I have not attempted to give more than a brief résumé of this +story, and have used Thomas Wright, <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i> +(London, 1851), I, 181-190, and Mrs. Lynn Linton, <i>Witch Stories</i>, 21-34. +The pamphlet about Dr. Fian is a rare one, but may be found in several +libraries. It has been reprinted by the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, vol. XLIX +(1779), by the Roxburghe Club (London, 1816), by Robert Pitcairn, in +his <i>Criminal Trials in Scotland</i> (Edinburgh, 1829-1833), vol. I, and +doubtless in many other places. Pitcairn has also printed a part of the +records of his trial.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96-1_2" id="Footnote_96-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> This is all based upon the contemporary accounts mentioned above.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96-2_3" id="Footnote_96-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Register of the Privy Council of Scotland</i>, IV (Edinburgh, 1881), 644-645, +note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97-1_4" id="Footnote_97-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97-1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> A fresh edition was brought out at London in 1603. In 1616 it appeared +again as a part of the handsome collection of his <i>Workes</i> compiled +by the Bishop of Winchester.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97-2_5" id="Footnote_97-2_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97-2_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This story is to be found in the apocryphal book of Bel and the +Dragon. It played a great part in the discussions of the writers on +witchcraft.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99-1_6" id="Footnote_99-1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99-1_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> H. C. Lea, <i>Superstition and Force</i> (4th ed., Philadelphia, 1892), 325 +ff., gives some facts about the water ordeal on the Continent. A sharp +dispute over its use in witch cases was just at this time going on there.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100-1_7" id="Footnote_100-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> He recommended torture in finding out the guilty: "And further +experience daily proves how loth they are to confesse without torture, +which witnesseth their guiltinesse," <i>Dæmonologie</i>, bk. ii, ch. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100-2_8" id="Footnote_100-2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100-2_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Wright, <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i>, I, 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102-1_9" id="Footnote_102-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Edward Fairfax, <i>A Discourse of Witchcraft As it was acted in the +Family of Mr. Edward Fairfax ... in the year 1621</i> (Philobiblon Soc., +<i>Miscellanies</i>, V, ed. R. Monckton Milnes, London, 1858-1859), "Preface +to the Reader," 26, explains the king's motive: His "Majesty found a +defect in the statutes, ... by which none died for Witchcraft but they +only who by that means killed, so that such were executed rather as +murderers than as Witches."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102-2_10" id="Footnote_102-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Journals of the House of Lords</i>, II, 269; Wm. Cobbett, <i>Parliamentary +History</i>, I, 1017, 1018.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103-1_11" id="Footnote_103-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Lords' Journal</i>, II, 271, 316; <i>Commons' Journal</i>, I, 203-204.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103-2_12" id="Footnote_103-2_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103-2_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1603-1610</i>, 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103-3_13" id="Footnote_103-3_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103-3_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> It had passed the third reading in the Commons on June 7; <i>Commons' +Journal</i>, I, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104-1_14" id="Footnote_104-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It can hardly be doubted that the change in the wording of the law +was dictated not only by the desire to simplify the matter of proof but +by a wish to satisfy those theologians who urged that any use of witchcraft +was a "covenant with death" and "an agreement with hell" +(Isaiah xxviii, 18).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105-1_15" id="Footnote_105-1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105-1_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See Southworth case in Thomas Potts, <i>The Wonderfull Discoverie of +Witches in the countie of Lancaster ...</i> (London, 1613; reprinted, +Chetham Soc., 1845), L 2 verso. Cited hereafter as Potts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105-2_16" id="Footnote_105-2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105-2_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See, below, appendix B. It should be added that six others who had +been condemned by the judges for bewitching a boy were released at +James's command.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107-1_17" id="Footnote_107-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>The Witches of Northamptonshire ...</i> C 2 verso. The writer +of this pamphlet, who does not tell the story of the ordeal so fully as the +author of the MS. account, "A briefe abstract of the arraignment of +nine witches at Northampton, July 21, 1612" (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 972), +gives, however, proof of the influence of James in the matter. He says +that the two ways of testing witches are by the marks and "the trying +of the insensiblenesse thereof," and by "their fleeting on the water," +which is an exact quotation from James, although not so indicated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107-2_18" id="Footnote_107-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The mother and father were apparently not sent to the assize court.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108-1_19" id="Footnote_108-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The female jury was used at Northampton ("women sworn"), also at +Bedford, but by a private party.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108-2_20" id="Footnote_108-2_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108-2_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> It was used in 1621 on Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton. In this case +it was done clearly at the command of the judge who tried her at the Old +Bailey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108-3_21" id="Footnote_108-3_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108-3_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Elizabeth Device, however, confessed that the "said Devill did get +blood under her left arme," which raises a suspicion that this confession +was the result of accusations against her on that score.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108-4_22" id="Footnote_108-4_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108-4_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See account in next chapter of the trial at Lancaster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109-1_23" id="Footnote_109-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> This case must be used with hesitation; see below, appendix A, § 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109-2_24" id="Footnote_109-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> At Warboys the Samuels had been required to repeat: "If I be a +witch and consenting to the death" of such and such a one. Alice +Wilson, at Northampton in 1612, was threatened by the justice with execution, +if she would not say after the minister "I forsake the Devil." +She is said to have averred that she could not say this. See MS. account +of the witches of Northampton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109-3_25" id="Footnote_109-3_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109-3_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Well known is the practice ascribed to witches of making a waxen +image, which was then pricked or melted before the fire, in the belief that +the torments inflicted upon it would be suffered by the individual it +represented.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110-1_26" id="Footnote_110-1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110-1_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Potts, E 3 verso, F 4, G 2; also <i>The Wonderful Discoverie of the +Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower, ...</i> (London, 1619), 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110-2_27" id="Footnote_110-2_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110-2_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See MS. account of the Northampton witches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110-3_28" id="Footnote_110-3_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110-3_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>: "Sundry other witches appeared to him.... Hee heard many +of them railing at Jane Lucas, laying the fault on her that they were +thus accused."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111-1_29" id="Footnote_111-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111-1_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> There was practically no spectral evidence in the Lancashire cases. +Lister on his death-bed had cried out against Jennet Preston, and John +Law was tormented with a vision of Alizon Device "both day and night"; +Potts, Y 2 verso. But these were exceptional.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111-2_30" id="Footnote_111-2_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111-2_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> See <i>The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by ... +Annis Dell.... With the Severall Witch-crafts ... of one Johane +Harrison and her Daughter</i> (London, 1606).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112-1_31" id="Footnote_112-1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112-1_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> MS. account of the Northampton witches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112-2_32" id="Footnote_112-2_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112-2_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See Potts, Z 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112-3_33" id="Footnote_112-3_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112-3_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The dramatist Dekker made use of this; see his <i>Witch of Edmonton</i>, +act IV, scene I (Mermaid edition, London, 1904): +</p><p> +1st Countreyman.—This thatch is as good as a jury to prove she is a witch. +</p> +<div style="letter-spacing: 2em;">* * * * * * * *</div> +<p> +Justice.—<span style="margin-left: 4.2em;">Come, come: firing her thatch? ridiculous!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Take heed, sirs, what you do; unless your proofs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Come better aimed, instead of turning her</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Into a witch, you'll prove yourselves stark fools.</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113-1_34" id="Footnote_113-1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-1_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See Potts, P 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113-2_35" id="Footnote_113-2_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-2_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, Q verso. This, however, was the second time that the +judge had tried this ruse; see <i>ibid.</i>, P 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113-3_36" id="Footnote_113-3_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113-3_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> See above, note 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114-1_37" id="Footnote_114-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-1_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> North Riding Record Soc., <i>Quarter Sessions Records</i> (London, 1883, +etc.), III, 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114-2_38" id="Footnote_114-2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-2_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Two of them, however, were issued to the same woman, one in +1604 and one in 1610.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114-3_39" id="Footnote_114-3_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114-3_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIII, 4 (Rye), pp. 136-137, 139-140, 144, +147-148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115-1_40" id="Footnote_115-1_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115-1_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The term "spinster" was sometimes used of a married woman.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115-2_41" id="Footnote_115-2_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115-2_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1619-1623</i>, 125, Chamberlain to Carleton, February +26, 1620: "Peacock, a schoolmaster, committed to the Tower and tortured +for practising sorcery upon the King, to infatuate him in Sir Thos. +Lake's business." This is one of those rare cases in which we know +certainly that torture was used.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115-3_42" id="Footnote_115-3_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115-3_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Sir Thomas Lake to Viscount Cranbourne, January 20, 1604, Brit. +Mus., Add. MSS., 6177, fol. 403.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116-1_43" id="Footnote_116-1_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-1_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1623-1625</i>, 474, 485, 497.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116-2_44" id="Footnote_116-2_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-2_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> T. B. and T. J. Howell, <i>State Trials</i> (London, 1809-1818), II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116-3_45" id="Footnote_116-3_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-3_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> See Potts, O 3 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116-4_46" id="Footnote_116-4_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116-4_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> See <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIII, 4 (Rye), pp. 136-137, 139-140, +144, 147-148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117-1_47" id="Footnote_117-1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117-1_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> See Alexander Roberts, <i>A Treatise of Witchcraft ...</i> (London, +1616), dedicated to the "Maior and Aldermen."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117-2_48" id="Footnote_117-2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117-2_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> M. A. Richardson, <i>Table Book</i> (London, 1841-1846), I, 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117-3_49" id="Footnote_117-3_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117-3_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> North Riding Record Soc., <i>Quarter Sessions Records</i>, I, 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117-4_50" id="Footnote_117-4_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117-4_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> "... neither had they authoritie to compell her to goe without a +Constable."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118-1_51" id="Footnote_118-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118-1_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 36,674, fol. 148. This is a brief description +of "how to discover a witch." It recommends the water ordeal and +cites the case of Mr. Enger and Mary Sutton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118-2_52" id="Footnote_118-2_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118-2_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> In the case of three of these four we know only that they were +sentenced.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119-1_53" id="Footnote_119-1_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119-1_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Before the Flower case at Lincoln came the Willimot-Baker cases at +Leicester. The Bedford trial resembled much the Northampton trial of +the previous year.</p></div> + + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Notable Jacobean Cases.</h3> + + +<p>It is possible to sift, to analyze, and to reconstruct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +the material derived from witch trials until some few +conclusions about a given period can be ventured. A +large proportion of cases can be proved to belong in this +or that category, a certain percentage of the women +can be shown to possess these or those traits in common. +Yet it is quite thinkable that one might be armed +with a quiver full of generalizations, and fail, withal, +to comprehend Jacobean witchcraft. If one could have +asked information on the subject from a Londoner +of 1620, he would probably have heard little about +witchcraft in general, but a very great deal about the +Lancashire, Northampton, Leicester, Lincoln, and +Fairfax trials. The Londoner might have been able to +tell the stories complete of all those famous cases. He +would have been but poorly informed could he not have +related some of them, and the listener would have +caught the surface drift of those stories. But a witch +panic is a subtle thing, not to be understood by those +who do not follow all its deeper sequences. The springs +of the movement, the interaction of cause and effect, +the operation of personal traits, these are factors that +must be evaluated, and they are not factors that can be +fitted into a general scheme, labelled and classified.</p> + +<p>This does not mean that the cases should be examined +in chronological sequence. That is not necessary; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +the half-dozen cases that we shall run over had little or +no cause-and-effect connection with one another. It +is convenient, indeed, to make some classification, and +the simplest is that by probable origin, especially as it +will enable us to emphasize that important feature of +the trials. Now, by this method the six or more trials +of note may be grouped under three headings: cases +that seem to have originated in the actual practice of +magic, cases where the victims of convulsions and fits +started the furor, and cases that were simply the last +stage of bitter quarrels or the result of grudges.</p> + +<p>To the first group belongs the Lancastrian case of +1612, which, however, may also be classed under the +last heading. No case in the course of the superstition +in England gained such wide fame. Upon it Shadwell +founded in part a well-known play, <i>The Lancashire +Witches</i>, while poets and writers of prose have referred +to it until the two words have been linked in a phrase +that has given them lasting association. It was in the +lonely forest of Pendle among the wild hills of +eastern Lancashire that there lived two hostile families +headed by Elizabeth Southerns, or "Old Demdike," +and by Anne Chattox. The latter was a wool carder, +"a very old, withered, spent, and decreped creature," +"her lippes ever chattering"; the former a blind beggar +of four-score years, "a generall agent for the Devell +in all these partes," and a "wicked fire-brand of mischiefe," +who had brought up her children and grandchildren +to be witches. Both families professed supernatural +practices. Both families no doubt traded on the +fear they inspired. Indeed Dame Chattox was said to +have sold her guarantee to do no harm in return for a +fixed annual payment of "one aghen-dole of meale."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<p>That there was a feud between the two clans was to +be expected. They were at once neighbors and competitors, +and were engaged in a career in which they +must plot each against the other, and suspect each other. +There are hints of other difficulties. Years before there +had been a quarrel over stolen property. Demdike's +daughter had missed clothes and food to the value of +20 shillings, and had later found some of the clothing +in the possession of Chattox's daughter. A more serious +difficulty involved a third family: a member of the +Nutter family, well-to-do people in Lancashire, had +sought to seduce old Chattox's married daughter, and, +when repelled, had warned her that when he inherited +the property where she lived she should be evicted. +Chattox had retaliated by seeking to kill Nutter by +witchcraft, and had been further incited thereto by +three women, who wished to be rid of Nutter, in order +that "the women, their coosens, might have the land." +As a consequence Nutter had died within three months. +The quarrel, indeed, was three-cornered. It was said +that Demdike's daughter had fashioned a clay picture +of a Nutter woman.<a name="FNanchor_122-1_1" id="FNanchor_122-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_122-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>We have all the elements here of a mountain feud; +but, in place of the revolvers and Kentucky moonshine +of to-day, we have clay images and Satanic banquets. +The battles were to be fought out with imps of Hell as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>participants and with ammunition supplied by the Evil +One himself. It was this connection with a reservoir +of untouched demoniacal powers that made the quarrel +of the miserable mountaineers the most celebrated incident +in Lancashire story. Here were charmers and +"inchanters," experienced dealers in magic, struggling +against one another. Small wonder that the community +became alarmed and that Roger Nowell, justice of the +peace, suddenly swooped down upon the Pendle families. +It was but a short time before he had four women +cooped up in Lancaster castle. In a few days more he +was able to get confessions out of them. They admitted +acquaintance with the Devil and implicated one another.</p> + +<p>Now comes the strange part of the story. According +to confessions made later, Elizabeth Device, not yet +shut up, but likely to be at any time, called a meeting +on Good Friday of all the witches in Pendle forest. +They were to come to her home at Malking Tower to +plot the delivery of the imprisoned women by the +blowing up of Lancaster castle.<a name="FNanchor_123-1_2" id="FNanchor_123-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_123-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The affair took the +form of a dinner; and beef, bacon, and roasted mutton +were served. "All the witches went out of the said +House in their owne shapes and likenesses. And they +all, by that they were forth of the dores, gotten on +Horsebacke, like unto Foales, some of one colour, some +of another; and Preston's wife was the last; and, when +shee got on Horsebacke, they all presently vanished +out of ... sight." This was the story, and the various +witnesses agreed remarkably well as to its main details. +Those who believed in the "sabbath" of witches +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>must have felt their opinions confirmed by the testimony +of the witnesses at Lancaster. Even the modern +reader, with his skepticism, is somewhat daunted by the +cumulative force of what purports to be the evidence +and would fain rationalize it by supposing that some +sort of a meeting actually did take place at Malking +Tower and that some Pendle men and women who had +delved in magic arts till they believed in them did formulate +plans for revenge. But this is not a probable +supposition. The concurring evidence in the Malking +Tower story is of no more compelling character than +that to be found in a multitude of Continental stories +of witch gatherings which have been shown to be the +outcome of physical or mental pressure and of leading +questions. It seems unnecessary to accept even a substratum +of fact.<a name="FNanchor_124-1_3" id="FNanchor_124-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_124-1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Probably one of the accused women +invented the story of the witch feast after the model +of others of which she had heard, or developed it under +the stimulus of suggestive questions from a justice. +Such a narrative, once started, would spread like wildfire +and the witnesses and the accused who were persuaded +to confess might tell approximately the same +story. A careful re-reading of all this evidence suggests +that the various testimonies may indeed have been +echoes of the first narrative. They seem to lack those +characteristic differences which would stamp them as +independent accounts. Moreover, when the story was +once started, it is not improbable that the justices and +the judges would assist the witnesses by framing questions +based upon the narrative already given. It cannot +be said that the evidence exists upon which to es<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>tablish +this hypothesis. There is little to show that +the witnesses were adroitly led into their narratives. +But we know from other trials that the method was so +often adopted that it is not a far cry to suspect that it +was used at Lancaster.</p> + +<p>It is not worth while to trace out the wearisome +details that were elicited by confession. Those already +in prison made confessions that implicated others, until +the busy justices of the peace had shut up sixteen women +and four men to be tried at the assizes. Sir Edward +Bromley and Sir James Altham, who were then on the +northern circuit, reached Lancaster on the sixteenth of +August. In the meantime, "Old Demdike," after a +confession of most awful crimes, had died in prison. +All the others were put on trial. Thomas Potts compiled +a very careful abstract of all the testimony taken, perhaps +the most detailed account of a witch trial written +in the English language, with the possible exception of +the St. Oses affair. The evidence was in truth of a +somewhat similar type. Secret interviews with the +Evil One, promises of worldly riches, a contract sealed +with blood, little shapes of dogs, cats, and hares, clay +pictures that had been dried and had crumpled, threats +and consequent "languishing" and death, these were +the trappings of the stories. The tales were old. Only +the Malking Tower incident was new. But its very +novelty gave a plausibility to the stories that were +woven around it. There was not a single person to +interpose a doubt. The cross-examinations were nothing +more than feeble attempts to bring out further +charges.</p> + +<p>Though there is in the record little suggestion of the +use of pressure to obtain the confessions, the fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +three were retracted leads to a suspicion that they had +not been given quite freely. There was doubtless something +contagious about the impulse to confess. It is, +nevertheless, a curious circumstance that five members +of the two rival Pendle families made confession, while +all the others whom their confessions had involved +stuck to it that they were innocent.<a name="FNanchor_126-1_4" id="FNanchor_126-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_126-1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Among those who +persisted in denying their guilt Alice Nutter merits +special note. We have already mentioned her in the last +chapter as an example of a well-to-do and well connected +woman who fell a victim to the Lancashire excitement.<a name="FNanchor_126-2_5" id="FNanchor_126-2_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_126-2_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +The evidence against the woman was perhaps +the flimsiest ever offered to a court. Elizabeth +Device, daughter of "Old Demdike," and her two +children were the chief accusers. Elizabeth had seen +her present at the Malking Tower meeting. Moreover, +she stated that Alice had helped her mother ("Old +Demdike") bewitch a man to death. Her son had +heard his grandmother Demdike narrate the incident. +This testimony and his sister's definite statement that +Alice Nutter attended the Malking Tower meeting established +Mistress Nutter's guilt.<a name="FNanchor_126-3_6" id="FNanchor_126-3_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_126-3_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The judge, indeed, +was "very suspitious of the accusation of this yong +wench, Jennet Device," and, as we have already seen, +caused her to be sent out of the court room till the accused +lady could be placed among other prisoners, +when the girl was recalled and required before the +great audience present to pick out the witch, as, of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>course, she easily did, and as easily escaped another +transparent trap.<a name="FNanchor_127-1_7" id="FNanchor_127-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_127-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>The two children figured prominently from this on. +The nine-year-old girl gave evidence as to events of +three years before, while the young man, who could +hardly have been out of his teens,<a name="FNanchor_127-2_8" id="FNanchor_127-2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_127-2_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> recounted what had +happened twelve years earlier. It was their testimony +against their mother that roused most interest. Although +of a circumstantial character, it fitted in most +remarkable fashion into the evidence already presented.<a name="FNanchor_127-3_9" id="FNanchor_127-3_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_127-3_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +The mother, says the nonchalant pamphleteer, +indignantly "cryed out against the child," cursing her +so outrageously that she was removed from the room +while the child kept the stand. It is useless to waste +sympathy upon a mother who was getting at the hands +of her children the same treatment she had given her +own mother Demdike. The Chattox family held together +better. Mistress Redfearne had been carefully +shielded in the testimony of her mother Chattox, but +she fell a victim to the accusations of the opposing family. +The course of her trial was remarkable. Denying +her guilt with great emphasis, she had by some wonder +been acquitted. But this verdict displeased the people +in attendance upon the trial. Induced by the cries of +the people, the court was persuaded to try her again. +The charge against her was exactly the same, that +eighteen years before she had participated in killing +Christopher Nutter with a clay figure. "Old Demdike" +had seen her in the act of making the image, and there +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>was offered also the testimony of the sister and brother +of the dead man, who recalled that Robert Nutter on +his death-bed had accused Anne of his bewitchment.<a name="FNanchor_128-1_10" id="FNanchor_128-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-1_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +It does not seem to have occurred to the court that the +principle that a person could not twice be put in jeopardy +for the same offence was already an old principle +in English law.<a name="FNanchor_128-2_11" id="FNanchor_128-2_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_128-2_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The judges were more concerned +with appeasing the people than with recalling old precedents, +and sent the woman to the gallows.</p> + +<p>The Pendle cases were interrupted on the third day +by the trial of three women from Salmesbury, who +pleaded not guilty and put themselves "upon God and +their Countrey." The case against them rested upon the +testimony of a single young woman, Grace Sowerbutts, +who declared that for the three years past she +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>had been vexed by the women in question, who "did +violently draw her by the haire of the head, and layd her +on the toppe of a Hay-mowe." This delightfully absurd +charge was coupled with some testimony about the +appearances of the accused in animal form. Three +men attempted to bolster up the story; but no "matter +of witchcraft" was proved, says the for once incredulous +Mr. Potts. The women seized the decisive moment. +They kneeled before the judge and requested +him to examine Grace Sowerbutts as to who set her on. +The judge—who had seemingly not thought of this before—followed +the suggestion. The girl changed +countenance and acknowledged that she had been taught +her story. At the order of the judge she was questioned +by a clergyman and two justices of the peace, who +found that she had been coached to tell her story by a +Master Thompson, alias Southworth, a "seminarie +priest." So ended the charges against the Salmesbury +witches.</p> + +<p>One would suppose that this verdict might have +turned the tide in the other cases. But the evidence, as +Potts is careful to show, lest the reader should draw a +wrong conclusion, was of very different character in +the other trials. They were all finished on the third +day of court and turned over to the jury. Five of the +accused, exclusive of those at Salmesbury, were acquitted, +one condemned to a year's imprisonment, and +ten sentenced to death. To this number should be +added Jennet Preston, who had in the preceding month +been tried at York for the killing of a Mr. Lister, and +who was named by the Lancaster witnesses as one of +the gang at Malking Tower.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> + +<p>So ended the Lancashire trials of 1612. The most +remarkable event of the sort in James's reign, they were +clearly the outcome of his writings and policy. Potts +asks pointedly: "What hath the King's Maiestie written +and published in his Dæmonologie by way of premonition +and prevention, which hath not here by the +first or last beene executed, put in practice, or discovered?"</p> + +<p>Our second group of cases includes those where +convulsive and "possessed" persons had started the +alarm. The Northampton, Leicester, and Lichfield +cases were all instances in point. The last two, however, +may be omitted here because they will come up in +another connection. The affair at Northampton in +1612, just a month earlier than the Lancashire affair, +merits notice. Elizabeth Belcher and her brother, +"Master Avery," were the disturbing agents. Mistress +Belcher had long been suffering with an illness that +baffled diagnosis. It was suggested to her that the +cause was witchcraft. A list of women reputed to be +witches was repeated to her. The name of Joan Brown +seemed to impress her. "Hath shee done it?" she +asked.<a name="FNanchor_130-1_12" id="FNanchor_130-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_130-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The name was repeated to her and from that +time she held Joan guilty.<a name="FNanchor_130-2_13" id="FNanchor_130-2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_130-2_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Joan and her mother were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>shut up. Meantime Master Avery began to take fits +and to aid his sister in making accusation. Between +them they soon had accused six women for their afflictions. +The stir brought to the surface the hidden +suspicions of others. There was a witch panic and the +justices of the peace<a name="FNanchor_131-1_14" id="FNanchor_131-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_131-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> scurried hither and thither till +they had fourteen witches locked up in Northampton. +When the trial came off at Northampton, Master Avery +was the hero. He re-enacted the rôle of the Throckmorton +children at Warboys with great success. When +he came to court—he came in a "coch"—he was at +once stricken with convulsions. His torments in court +were very convincing. It is pleasant to know that +when he came out of his seizure he would talk very +"discreetly, christianly, and charitably." Master Avery +was versatile, however. His evidence against the +women rested by no means alone on his seizures. He +had countless apparitions in which he saw the accused;<a name="FNanchor_131-2_15" id="FNanchor_131-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_131-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +he had been mysteriously thrown from a horse; strangest +of all, he had foretold at a certain time that if any +one should go down to the gaol and listen to the voices +of the witches, he could not understand a word. Whereupon +a Master of Arts of Trinity College, Oxford, +went off to the prison at the uncanny hour of two in +the morning and "heard a confused noise of much +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>chattering and chiding, but could not discover a ready +word."</p> + +<p>Master Avery had a great deal more to tell, but the +jury seem not to have fully credited him.<a name="FNanchor_132-1_16" id="FNanchor_132-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_132-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> They convicted +Joan Brown and her mother, however, on the +charges of Elizabeth and her brother. Three others +were found guilty upon other counts. None of them, +so far as the records go, and the records were careful +on this point, admitted any guilt.<a name="FNanchor_132-2_17" id="FNanchor_132-2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_132-2_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The one young man +among those who were hanged bitterly resisted his +conviction from the beginning and died declaring that +authority had turned to tyranny. He might well feel +so. His father and mother had both been tortured by +the water ordeal, and his mother had been worried till +she committed suicide in prison.</p> + +<p>This brings us to the third sort of cases, those that +were the outcome of quarrels or grudges. It has +already been observed that the Lancashire affair could +very well be reckoned under this heading. It is no exaggeration +to say that a goodly percentage of all other +witch trials in the reign of James could be classified +in the same way. Most notable among them was the +famous trial of the Belvoir witches at Lincoln in 1618-1619. +The trial has received wide notice because it +concerned a leading family—perhaps the wealthiest in +England—the great Catholic family of Manners, of +which the Earl of Rutland was head. The effort to account +for the mysterious illness of his young heir and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>for that which had a few years earlier carried off the +boy's elder brother led to a charge of witchcraft against +three humble women of the neighborhood. The Rutland +affair shows how easily a suspicion of witchcraft might +involve the fortunes of the lowly with those of the +great. Joan Flower and her two daughters had been employed +as charwomen in Belvoir Castle, the home of the +Rutlands. One of the daughters, indeed, had been put +in charge of "the poultrey abroad and the washhouse +within dores." But this daughter seems not +to have given satisfaction to the countess in her +work, some other causes of disagreement arose which +involved Mother Flower, and both Mother Flower and +her daughter were sent away from the castle. This +was the beginning of the trouble. Mother Flower +"cursed them all that were the cause of this discontentment." +Naturally little heed was paid to her +grumblings. Such things were common enough and it +did not even occur to any one, when the eldest son of +the earl sickened and died, that the event was in any +way connected with the malice of the Flowers. It +was not until about five years later, when the younger +son Francis fell sick of an illness to prove fatal, that +suspicion seems to have lighted upon the three women.<a name="FNanchor_133-1_18" id="FNanchor_133-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_133-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> +The circumstances that led to their discharge were +then recalled and along with them a mass of idle gossip +and scandal against the women. It was remembered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>that Mother Joan was "a monstrous malicious woman, +full of oathes, curses, and imprecations irreligious." +Some of her neighbors "dared to affirme that she dealt +with familiar spirits, and terrified them all with curses +and threatning of revenge." At length, in February of +1618/19, on the return of the earl from attending His +Majesty "both at Newmarket before Christmas and at +Christmas at Whitehall," the women were fetched before +justices of the peace, who bound them over to the +assizes at Lincoln. Mother Flower died on the way to +Lincoln, but the two daughters were tried there before +Sir Edward Bromley, who had been judge at the Lancashire +trials, and before Sir Henry Hobart. The +women made a detailed confession of weird crimes. +There were tales of gloves belonging to the two young +sons of the earl, gloves that had been found in uncanny +places and had been put in hot water and rubbed upon +Rutterkin the cat—or spirit. There were worse stories +that will not bear repetition. Needless to say, Margaret +and Philippa Flower were convicted and hanged.<a name="FNanchor_134-1_19" id="FNanchor_134-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_134-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>The Rutland cases have been used to illustrate how +the witch accusation might arise out of a grudge or +quarrel. There were three or four other cases that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>illustrate this origin of the charge. The first is that +of Johanna Harrison—she has been mentioned in the +previous chapter—who had an "altercation" with a +neighbor. Of course she threatened him, he fell ill, +and he scratched her.<a name="FNanchor_135-1_20" id="FNanchor_135-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_135-1_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> But here the commonplace tale +takes a new turn. She had him arrested and was +awarded five shillings damages and her costs of suit. +No wonder the man fell sick again. Perhaps—but this +cannot be certain—it was the same man who was drinking +his ale one day with his fellows when she entered +and stood "gloating" over him. He turned and said, +"Doe you heare, Witch, looke tother waies." The +woman berated him with angry words, and, feeling +ill the next morning—he had been drinking heavily +the night before—he dragged her off to the justice. +A few weeks later she and her daughter were hanged +at Hertford.<a name="FNanchor_135-2_21" id="FNanchor_135-2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_135-2_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The story of Mother Sutton and Master Enger has +been referred to in several connections, but it will bear +telling in narrative form. Mother Sutton was a poor +tenant of Master Enger's, "a gentleman of worship," +who often bestowed upon her "food and cloathes." On +account of her want she had been chosen village "hog-heard," +and had for twenty years fulfilled the duties +of her office "not without commendations." But it +happened that she quarreled one day with her benefactor, +and then his difficulties began. The tale is almost +too trivial for repetition, but is nevertheless characteristic. +Master Enger's servants were taking some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>corn to market, when they met "a faire black sowe" +grazing. The wayward beast began turning round "as +readily as a Windmill sail at worke; and as sodainly +their horses fell to starting and drawing some one way, +some another." They started off with the cart of corn, +but broke from it and ran away. The servants caught +them and went on to Bedford with the load. But the +sow followed. When the corn had been sold, one of +the servants went home, the other stayed with his +"boone companions." When he rode home later, he +found the sow grazing outside of town. It ran by +his side, and the horses ran away again. But the +servants watched the sow and saw it enter Mother +Sutton's house. Master Enger made light of the story +when it was told to him, and, with remarkable insight +for a character in a witch story, "supposed they were +drunke." But a few days later the same servant fell +into conversation with Mother Sutton, when a beetle +came and struck him. He fell into a trance, and then +went home and told his master. The next night the +servant said that Mary Sutton entered his room—the +vision we have already described.<a name="FNanchor_136-1_22" id="FNanchor_136-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_136-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>The rest of the story the reader knows from the last +chapter. Mother Sutton and her daughter were put +to various ordeals and at length hanged. Doubtless the +imaginative servant, who had in some way, perhaps, +been involved in the original quarrel, gained favor with +his master, and standing in the community.<a name="FNanchor_136-2_23" id="FNanchor_136-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_136-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p><p>The tale of the Bakewell witches is a very curious +one and, though not to be confidently depended upon, +may suggest how it was possible to avail oneself +of superstition in order to repay a grudge. A Scotchman +staying at a lodging-house in Bakewell fell in debt +to his landlady, who retained some of his clothes as security. +He went to London, concealed himself in a +cellar, and was there found by a watchman, who arrested +him for being in an unoccupied house with felonious +intent. He professed to be dazed and declared +that he was at Bakewell in Derbyshire at three o'clock +that morning. He explained it by the fact that he had +repeated certain words which he had heard his lodging-house +keeper and her sister say. The judge was amazed, +the man's depositions were taken down, and he was +sent to the justices of Derby.</p> + +<p>All that we really know about the Bakewell affair is +that several witches probably suffered death there in +1607. A local antiquarian has given this tale of how +the alarm started.<a name="FNanchor_137-1_24" id="FNanchor_137-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_137-1_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> While it is unlike any other narrative +of witchcraft, it is not necessarily without +foundation.</p> + +<p>The reader has doubtless observed that the cases +which we have been describing occurred, all of them +with one exception, between 1603 and 1619. In discussing +the matter of the distribution of witchcraft +in the last chapter we noted that not only executions +for the crime, but even accusations and indictments, +were nearly altogether limited to the first fifteen years +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>of James's rule. If it is true that there was a rather +sudden falling off of prosecution in the reign of the +zealous James, the fact merits explanation. Fortunately +the explanation is not far to seek. The king's +faith in the verity of many of the charges made against +witches had been rudely shaken. As a matter of fact +there had always been a grain of skepticism in his +make-up. This had come out even before he entered +England. In 1597 he had become alarmed at the spread +of trials in Scotland and had revoked all the commissions +then in force for the trial of the offence.<a name="FNanchor_138-1_25" id="FNanchor_138-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_138-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> At +the very time when he became king of England, there +were special circumstances that must have had weight +with him. Throughout the last years of Elizabeth's +reign there had been, as we have seen, a morbid interest +in demoniacal possession, an interest to which sensation-mongers +were quickly minded to respond. We +saw that at the end of the sixteenth century the Anglican +church stepped in to put down the exorcizing of +spirits,<a name="FNanchor_138-2_26" id="FNanchor_138-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_138-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> largely perhaps because it had been carried on +by Catholics and by a Puritan clergyman. Yet neither +Harsnett's book nor Darrel's imprisonment quite +availed to end a practice which offered at all times to +all comers a path to notoriety. James had not been on +the English throne a year when he became interested +in a case of this kind. Mary Glover, a girl alleged to +have been bewitched by a Mother Jackson, was at the +king's wish examined by a skilled physician, Dr. Edward +Jorden, who recognized her fits as disease, brought the +girl to a confession, published an account of the matter, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>and so saved the life of the woman whom she had +accused.<a name="FNanchor_139-1_27" id="FNanchor_139-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>In the very next year there was a case at Cambridge +that gained royal notice. It is not easy to straighten +out the facts from the letters on the matter, but it +seems that two Cambridge maids had a curious disease +suggesting bewitchment.<a name="FNanchor_139-2_28" id="FNanchor_139-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> A Franciscan and a Puritan +clergyman were, along with others, suspected. The +matter was at once referred to the king and the government. +James directed that examinations be made +and reported to him. This was done. James wormed +out of the "principal" some admission of former +dealing with conjuration, but turned the whole thing +over to the courts, where it seems later to have been +established that the disease of the bewitched maidens +was "naturall."</p> + +<p>These were but the first of several impostures that +interested the king. A girl at Windsor, another in Hertfordshire, +were possessed by the Devil,<a name="FNanchor_139-3_29" id="FNanchor_139-3_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-3_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> two maids at +Westminster were "in raptures from the Virgin Mary +and Michael the Archangel,"<a name="FNanchor_139-4_30" id="FNanchor_139-4_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-4_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> a priest of Leicestershire +was "possessed of the Blessed Trinity."<a name="FNanchor_139-5_31" id="FNanchor_139-5_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_139-5_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Such cases—not +to mention the Grace Sowerbutts confessions at +Lancaster that were like to end so tragically—were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>the excrescences of an intensely religious age. The +reader of early colonial diaries in America will recognize +the resemblance of these to the wonders they report. +James took such with extreme seriousness.<a name="FNanchor_140-1_32" id="FNanchor_140-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_140-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> +The possessed person was summoned to court for exhibition, +or the king went out of his way to see him. It +is a matter of common information that James prided +himself on his cleverness. Having succeeded in detecting +certain frauds, he became an expert detective. +In one instance "he ordered it so that a proper courtier +made love to one of these bewitched maids"<a name="FNanchor_140-2_33" id="FNanchor_140-2_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_140-2_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and +soon got her over her troubles. In another case a +woman "strangely affected" by the first verse of John's +Gospel failed to recognize it when read in Greek,<a name="FNanchor_140-3_34" id="FNanchor_140-3_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_140-3_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +proof positive that the omniscient Devil did not possess +her.</p> + +<p>Three instances of exposure of imposture were most +notable, those of Grace Sowerbutts, the boy at Leicester, +and the "Boy of Bilston." The first of these has already +been sufficiently discussed in connection with the Lancashire +trials. The second had nothing remarkable about +it. A twelve or thirteen-year-old boy had fits which he +said were caused by spirits sent by several women whom +he accused as witches. Nine women were hanged, while +six more were under arrest and would probably have +met the same end, had not the king in his northward +progress, while stopping at Leicester, detected the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>shamming.<a name="FNanchor_141-1_35" id="FNanchor_141-1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-1_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Whether or no the boy was punished we +are not told. It is some satisfaction that the judges +were disgraced.<a name="FNanchor_141-2_36" id="FNanchor_141-2_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-2_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>The boy of Bilston was, if Webster may be believed,<a name="FNanchor_141-3_37" id="FNanchor_141-3_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-3_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> +the most famous, if not the most successful, fraud of +all. The case was heralded over the entire realm and +thousands came to see. The story is almost an exact +duplicate of earlier narratives of possession. A thirteen-year-old +boy of Bilston in Staffordshire, William +Perry, began to have fits and to accuse a Jane Clarke, +whose presence invariably made him worse. He "cast +out of his mouth rags, thred, straw, crooked pins." +These were but single deceptions in a repertoire of +varied tricks. Doubtless he had been trained in his rôle +by a Roman priest. At any rate the Catholics tried exorcism +upon him, but to no purpose. Perhaps some Puritans +experimented with cures which had like result.<a name="FNanchor_141-4_38" id="FNanchor_141-4_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-4_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> +The boy continued his spasms and his charges against +the witch and she was brought into court at the July +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>assizes. But Bishop Morton,<a name="FNanchor_142-1_39" id="FNanchor_142-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> before whose chancellor +the boy had first been brought, was present, and the +judges turned the boy over to him for further investigation.<a name="FNanchor_142-2_40" id="FNanchor_142-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-2_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> +Then, with the help of his secretary, he set +about to test the boy, and readily exposed his deception—in +most curious fashion too. The boy, like one we +have met before, could not endure the first verse of +John's Gospel, but failed to recognize it when read in +the Greek. After that he was secretly watched and his +somewhat elaborate preparations for his pretences were +found out. He was persuaded to confess his trickery +in court before Sir Peter Warburton and Sir Humphrey +Winch, "and the face of the County and Country +there assembled,"<a name="FNanchor_142-3_41" id="FNanchor_142-3_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-3_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> as well as to beg forgiveness of the +women whom he had accused.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that the records of imposture were well +on their way to rival the records of witchcraft, if not +in numbers, at least in the notice that they received. +And the king who had so bitterly arraigned Reginald +Scot was himself becoming the discoverer-general of +England.<a name="FNanchor_142-4_42" id="FNanchor_142-4_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_142-4_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> It is not, then, without being forewarned +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>that we read Fuller's remarkable statement about the +king's change of heart. "The frequency of such forged +possessions wrought such an alteration upon the judgement +of King James that he, receding from what he had +written in his 'Dæmonology,' grew first diffident of, and +then flatly to deny, the workings of witches and devils, +as but falsehoods and delusions."<a name="FNanchor_143-1_43" id="FNanchor_143-1_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_143-1_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> In immediate connection +with this must be quoted what Francis Osborne +has to say.<a name="FNanchor_143-2_44" id="FNanchor_143-2_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_143-2_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> He was told, he writes, that the +king would have gone as far as to deny any such operations, +but out of reasons of state and to gratify the +church.<a name="FNanchor_143-3_45" id="FNanchor_143-3_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_143-3_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>Such a conversion is so remarkable that we could +wish we had absolutely contemporary statements of it. +As a matter of fact, the statements we have quoted +establish nothing more than a probability, but they +certainly do establish that. Fuller, the church historian, +responsible for the first of the two statements, was a +student in Queen's College<a name="FNanchor_143-4_46" id="FNanchor_143-4_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_143-4_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> at Cambridge during the +last four years of James's reign; Osborne was a man +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>of thirty-two when the king died, and had spent a part +of his young manhood at the court. Their testimony +was that of men who had every opportunity to know +about the king's change of opinion.<a name="FNanchor_144-1_47" id="FNanchor_144-1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-1_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> In the absence +of any evidence to the contrary, we must accept, at +least provisionally, their statements.<a name="FNanchor_144-2_48" id="FNanchor_144-2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-2_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> And it is easier +to do so in view of the marked falling off of prosecutions +that we have already noted. This indeed is confirmation +of a negative sort; but we have one interesting +bit of affirmative proof, the outcome of the trials at +York in 1622. In that year the children of Mr. Edward +Fairfax, a member of the historic Fairfax family of +Yorkshire, were seized with some strange illness, in +which they saw again and again the spectres of six +different women. These women were examined by the +justices of the peace and committed to the assizes.<a name="FNanchor_144-3_49" id="FNanchor_144-3_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-3_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> In +the mean time they had found able and vigorous defenders +in the community. What happened at the April +assizes we no not know, but we know that four of the +women were released, two of them on bond.<a name="FNanchor_144-4_50" id="FNanchor_144-4_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_144-4_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> This was +probably a compromise method of settling the matter. +Fairfax was not satisfied. Probably through his influence +the women were again brought up at the August +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>assizes.<a name="FNanchor_145-1_51" id="FNanchor_145-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-1_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Then, at least, as we know beyond a doubt, +they were formally tried, this time upon indictments +preferred by Fairfax himself.<a name="FNanchor_145-2_52" id="FNanchor_145-2_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-2_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> The judge +warned the jury to be very careful, and, after hearing +some of the evidence, dismissed the women on the +ground that the evidence "reached not to the point +of the statute."<a name="FNanchor_145-3_53" id="FNanchor_145-3_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-3_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> This seems significant. A man +of a well known county family was utterly baffled +in pressing charges in a case where his own children +were involved.<a name="FNanchor_145-4_54" id="FNanchor_145-4_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-4_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> It looks as if there were judges +who were following the king's lead in looking out +for imposture.<a name="FNanchor_145-5_55" id="FNanchor_145-5_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_145-5_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> In any case there was, in certain +quarters, a public sentiment against the conviction of +witches, a sentiment that made itself felt. This we +shall have occasion to note again in following out the +currents and fluctuations of opinions.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122-1_1" id="Footnote_122-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Of course the proof that some of the accused really made pretensions +to magic rests upon their own confessions and their accusations of one +another, and might be a part of an intricate tissue of falsehood. But, +granting for the moment the absolute untrustworthiness of the confessions +and accusations there are incidental statements which imply the practice +of magic. For example, Elizabeth Device's young daughter quoted a +long charm which she said her mother had taught her and which she +hardly invented on the spur of the moment. And Demdike was requested +to "amend a sick cow."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123-1_2" id="Footnote_123-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The gunpowder plot, seven years earlier, no doubt gave direction to +this plan, or, perhaps it would be better to say, gave the idea to those who +confessed the plan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124-1_3" id="Footnote_124-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124-1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> James Crossley seems to believe that there was "some scintilla of +truth" behind the story. See his edition of Potts, notes, p. 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126-1_4" id="Footnote_126-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126-1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Among those who never confessed seems to have been Chattox's +daughter, Anne Redfearne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126-2_5" id="Footnote_126-2_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126-2_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See above, p. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126-3_6" id="Footnote_126-3_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126-3_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> It is a satisfaction to know that Alice died "impenitent," and that not +even her children could "move her to confesse."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127-1_7" id="Footnote_127-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See above, pp. 112-113, and Potts, Q-Q verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127-2_8" id="Footnote_127-2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127-2_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See Potts, I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127-3_9" id="Footnote_127-3_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127-3_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It can hardly be doubted that the children had been thoroughly +primed with the stories in circulation against their mother.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128-1_10" id="Footnote_128-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-1_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Other witnesses charged her with "many strange practises."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128-2_11" id="Footnote_128-2_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128-2_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The principle that a man's life may not twice be put in jeopardy +for the same offence had been pretty well established before 1612. See +Darly's Case, 25 Eliz. (1583), Coke's <i>Reports</i> (ed. Thomas and Fraser, +London, 1826), IV, f. 40; Vaux's Case, 33 Eliz. (1591), <i>ibid.</i>, f. 45; +Wrote <i>vs.</i> Wiggs, 33 Eliz. (1591), <i>ibid.</i>, f. 47. This principle had been +in process of development for several centuries. See Bracton (ed. Sir +Travers Twiss, London, 1878-1883), II, 417, 433, 437; Britton (ed. F. M. +Nichols, Oxford, 1865), bk. I, cap. xxiv, 5, f. 44 b. +</p><p> +It must be noted, however, that the statute of 3 Hen. VII, cap. II, +provides that indictments shall be proceeded in, immediately, at the +king's suit, for the death of a man, without waiting for bringing an +appeal; and that the plea of <i>antefort acquit</i> in an indictment shall be +no bar to the prosecuting of an appeal. This law was passed to get +around special legal inconvenience and related only to homicide and to +the single case of prosecution by appeal. In general, then, we may say +that the former-jeopardy doctrine was part of the common law, (1) +an appeal of felony being a bar to subsequent appeal or indictment, (2) +an indictment a bar to a subsequent indictment, and (3) an indictment to +a subsequent appeal, except so far as the statute of 3 Hen. VII., cap. +II, changed the law as respects homicides. For this brief statement I am +indebted to Professor William Underhill Moore of the University of +Wisconsin. +</p><p> +What Potts has to say about Anne Redfearne's case hardly enables us +to reach a conclusion about the legal aspect of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130-1_12" id="Footnote_130-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> This is the story in the MS. account (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 972). The +printed narrative of the origin of the affair is somewhat different. +Joan had on one occasion been struck by Mistress Belcher for unbecoming +behavior and had cherished a grudge. No doubt this was a point +recalled against Joan after suspicion had been directed against her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130-2_13" id="Footnote_130-2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130-2_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> In John Cotta's <i>The Triall of Witchcraft ...</i> (London, 1616), 66-67, +there is a very interesting statement which probably refers to this +case. Cotta, it will be remembered, was a physician at Northampton. +He wrote: "There is a very rare, but true, description of a Gentlewoman, +about sixe yeares past, cured of divers kinds of convulsions, ... +After she was almost cured, ... but the cure not fully accomplished, +it was by a reputed Wisard whispered ... that the Gentlewoman was +meerely bewitched, supposed Witches were accused and after executed.... +In this last past seventh yeare ... fits are critically again returned." +Cotta says six years ago and the Northampton trials were in 1612, four +years before. It is quite possible, however, that Mistress Belcher began +to be afflicted in 1610.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131-1_14" id="Footnote_131-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> One of these was Sir Gilbert Pickering of Tichmarsh, almost certainly +the Gilbert Pickering mentioned as an uncle of the Throckmorton +children at Warboys. See above, pp. 47-48. His hatred of witches had +no doubt been increased by that affair.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131-2_15" id="Footnote_131-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See what is said of spectral evidence in chapter V, above.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132-1_16" id="Footnote_132-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> At least there is no evidence that Alice Abbott, Catherine Gardiner, +and Alice Harris, whom he accused, were punished in any way.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132-2_17" id="Footnote_132-2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132-2_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> It seems, however, that Arthur Bill, while he sturdily denied guilt, +had been before trapped into some sort of an admission. He had "unawares +confest that he had certaine spirits at command." But this +may mean nothing more than that something he had said had been +grossly misinterpreted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133-1_18" id="Footnote_133-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Three women of Leicestershire, Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, and +Ellen Greene, who in their confessions implicated the Flowers (they +belonged to parishes neighbor to that of Belvoir, which lies on the shire +border) and whose testimony against them figured in their trials, were +at the same time (Feb.-March, 1618/19) under examination in that +county. Whether these women were authors or victims of the Belvoir +suspicions we do not know. As we have their damning confessions, there +is small doubt as to their fate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134-1_19" id="Footnote_134-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The women were tried in March, 1618/19. Henry, the elder son of +the earl, was buried at Bottesford, September 26, 1613. John Nichols, +<i>History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester</i> (London, 1795-1815), +II, pt. i, 49, note 10. Francis, the second, lingered till early in 1620. +His sister, Lady Katherine, whose delicate health had also been ascribed +to the witches, was now the heiress, and became in that year the bride +of Buckingham, the king's favorite. There is one aspect of this affair +that must not be overlooked. The accusation against the Flowers cannot +have been unknown to the king, who was a frequent visitor at the +seat of the Rutlands. It is hard to believe that under such circumstances +the use of torture, which James had declared essential to bring out the +guilt of the accused witches, was not after some fashion resorted to. +The weird and uncanny confessions go far towards supporting such an +hypothesis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135-1_20" id="Footnote_135-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135-1_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by ... Annis +Dell, ... with the severall Witch-crafts ... of one Johane Harrison +and her Daughter</i>, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135-2_21" id="Footnote_135-2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135-2_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> This story must be accepted with hesitation; see below, appendix A, +§3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136-1_22" id="Footnote_136-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See above, pp. 110-111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136-2_23" id="Footnote_136-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The trial of Elizabeth Sawyer at Edmonton in 1621 had to do with +similar trivialities. Agnes Ratcliffe was washing one day, when a sow +belonging to Elizabeth licked up a bit of her washing soap. She struck +it with a "washing beetle." Of course she fell sick, and on her death-bed +accused Mistress Elizabeth Sawyer, who was afterwards hanged.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137-1_24" id="Footnote_137-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137-1_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See T. Tindall Wildridge, in William Andrews, <i>Bygone Derbyshire</i> +(Derby, 1892), 180-184. It has been impossible to locate the sources of +this story. J. Charles Cox, who explored the Derby records, seems never +to have discovered anything about the affair.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138-1_25" id="Footnote_138-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See F. Legge, "Witchcraft in Scotland," in the <i>Scottish Review</i>, +XVIII, 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138-2_26" id="Footnote_138-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See above, ch. IV, especially note 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139-1_27" id="Footnote_139-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> On Mary Glover see also appendix A, § 2. On other impostures +see Thomas Fuller, <i>Church History of Britain</i> (London, 1655; +Oxford, ed. J. S. Brewer, 1845), ed. of 1845, V, 450; letters given by +Edmund Lodge, <i>Illustrations of British History, Biography and Manners ...</i> (London, +1791), III, 275, 284, 287-288; also <i>King James, His +Apothegms, by B. A., Gent.</i> (London, 1643), 8-10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139-2_28" id="Footnote_139-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1603-1610</i>, 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139-3_29" id="Footnote_139-3_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-3_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Fuller, <i>op. cit.</i>, V, 450.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139-4_30" id="Footnote_139-4_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-4_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>; John Gee, <i>The Foot out of the Snare, or Detection of Practices +and Impostures of Priests and Jesuits in England ...</i> (London, +1624), reprinted in <i>Somers Tracts</i>, III, 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139-5_31" id="Footnote_139-5_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139-5_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>; Fuller, <i>op. cit.</i>, V, 450.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140-1_32" id="Footnote_140-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> How much more seriously than his courtiers is suggested by an +anecdote of Sir John Harington's: James gravely questioned Sir John +why the Devil did work more with ancient women than with others. "We +are taught thereof in Scripture," gaily answered Sir John, "where it is +told that the Devil walketh in dry places." See his <i>Nugæ Antiquæ</i> (London, +1769), ed. of London, 1804, I, 368-369.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140-2_33" id="Footnote_140-2_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140-2_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Fuller, <i>op. cit.</i>, V, 451.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140-3_34" id="Footnote_140-3_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140-3_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141-1_35" id="Footnote_141-1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-1_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The story of the hangings at Leicester in 1616 has to be put together +from various sources. Our principal authority, however, is in two letters +written by Robert Heyrick of Leicester to his brother William in 1616, +which are to be found in John Nichols, <i>History and Antiquities of the +County of Leicester</i> (London, 1795-1815), II, pt. ii, 471, and in the +<i>Annual Register</i> for 1800. See also William Kelly, <i>Royal Progresses to +Leicester</i> (Leicester, 1884), 367-369. Probably this is the case referred +to by Francis Osborne, where the boy was sent to the Archbishop of +Canterbury for further examination. Osborne, who wrote a good deal +later than the events, apparently confused the story of the Leicester +witches with that of the Boy of Bilston—their origins were similar—and +produced a strange account; see his <i>Miscellany of Sundry Essays, Paradoxes +and Problematicall Discourses</i> (London, 1658-1659), 6-9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141-2_36" id="Footnote_141-2_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-2_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> For the disgrace of the judges see <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1611-1618</i>, 398.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141-3_37" id="Footnote_141-3_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-3_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Webster knew Bishop Morton, and also his secretary, Baddeley, who +had been notary in the case and had written an account of it. See John +Webster, <i>The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i> (London, 1677), 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141-4_38" id="Footnote_141-4_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-4_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The Catholics declared that the Puritans tried "syllabub" upon +him. This was perhaps a sarcastic reference to their attempts to cure +him by medicine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142-1_39" id="Footnote_142-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Then of Lichfield.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142-2_40" id="Footnote_142-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-2_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Baddeley, who was Bishop Morton's secretary and who prepared the +narrative of the affair for the printer, says that the woman was freed +by the inquest; Ryc. Baddeley, <i>The Boy of Bilson ...</i> (London, 1622), 61. +Arthur Wilson, who tells us that he heard the story "from the +Bishop's own mouth almost thirty years before it was inserted here," +says that the woman was found guilty and condemned to die; Arthur +Wilson, <i>Life and Reign of James I</i> (London, 1653), 107. It is evident +that Baddeley's story is the more trustworthy. It is of course possible, +although not probable, that there were two trials, and that Baddeley +ignored the second one, the outcome of which would have been less +creditable to the bishop.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142-3_41" id="Footnote_142-3_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-3_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Webster, <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142-4_42" id="Footnote_142-4_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142-4_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> See Fairfax, <i>A Discourse of Witchcraft</i> (Philobiblon Soc.): "and +those whose impostures our wise King so lately laid open." See also +an interesting letter from James himself in J. O. Halliwell, <i>Letters of +the Kings of England</i> (London, 1846), II, 124-125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143-1_43" id="Footnote_143-1_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143-1_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Fuller, <i>Church History of Britain</i>, V, 452 (ch. X, sect. 4). It is +worthy of note that Peter Heylyn, who, in his <i>Examen Historicum</i> +(London, 1659), sought to pick Fuller to pieces, does not mention this +point.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143-2_44" id="Footnote_143-2_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143-2_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See Francis Osborne, <i>Miscellany</i>, 4-9. Lucy Aikin, <i>Memoirs of the +Court of King James the First</i> (London, 1823), II, 398-399, gives about +the same story as Fuller and Osborne, and, while the wording is slightly +different, it is probable that they were her sources.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143-3_45" id="Footnote_143-3_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143-3_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Arthur Wilson, <i>op. cit.</i>, 111, tells us: "The King took delight by the +line of his reason to sound the depth of such brutish impostors, and he +discovered many." A writer to the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> (LIV, pt. I, +246-247), in 1784, says that he has somewhere read that King James on +his death-bed acknowledged that he had been deceived in his opinion +respecting witchcraft and expressed his concern that so many innocent +persons had suffered on that account. But, as he has forgotten where he +read it, his evidence is of course of small value.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143-4_46" id="Footnote_143-4_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143-4_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> The college where an annual sermon was preached on the subject +of witchcraft since the Warboys affair.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144-1_47" id="Footnote_144-1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-1_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Osborne's statement should perhaps be discounted a little on account +of his skepticism. On the other hand he was not such an admirer of +James I as to have given him undue credit. Fuller's opinion was divided.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144-2_48" id="Footnote_144-2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-2_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> James still believed in witchcraft in 1613, when the malodorous +divorce trial of Lady Essex took place. A careful reading of his words +at that time, however, leaves the impression that he was not nearly so +certain about the possibilities of witchcraft as he had been when he wrote +his book. His position was clearly defensive. It must be remembered +that James in 1613 had a point to be gained and would not have +allowed a possible doubt as to witchcraft to interfere with his wish for the +divorce. See Howell, <i>State Trials</i>, II, 806.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144-3_49" id="Footnote_144-3_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-3_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> One of them was publicly searched by command of a justice. See +Fairfax, <i>op. cit.</i>, 138-139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144-4_50" id="Footnote_144-4_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144-4_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 205. Two of the women had gone home before, <i>ibid.</i>, 180.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145-1_51" id="Footnote_145-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-1_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 225-234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145-2_52" id="Footnote_145-2_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-2_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145-3_53" id="Footnote_145-3_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-3_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 237-238. If the women were tried twice, it seems a clear +violation of the principle of former jeopardy. See above, note 11. The +statute of 3 Hen. VII, cap. I, that the plea of <i>antefort acquit</i> was no bar +to the prosecution of an appeal, would not apply in this instance, as +that statute was limited to cases of <i>homicide</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145-4_54" id="Footnote_145-4_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-4_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Fairfax was moreover a man for whom the king had a high personal +regard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145-5_55" id="Footnote_145-5_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145-5_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> At the August assizes there had been an effort to show that the +children were "counterfeiting." See the <i>Discourse</i>, 235-237.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Lancashire Witches and Charles I.</h3> + + +<p>In his attitude towards superstition, Charles I resembled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +the later rather than the earlier James I. No +reign up to the Revolution was marked by so few executions. +It was a time of comparative quiet. Here +and there isolated murmurs against suspected creatures +of the Devil roused the justices of the peace to +write letters, and even to make inquiries that as often +as not resulted in indefinite commitments, or brought +out the protests of neighbors in favor of the accused. +But, if there were not many cases, they represented a +wide area. Middlesex, Wilts, Somerset, Leicestershire, +Staffordshire, Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire, +and Northumberland were among the counties infested. +Yet we can count but six executions, and only four +of them rest upon secure evidence.<a name="FNanchor_146-1_1" id="FNanchor_146-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_146-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> This is of course +to reckon the reign of Charles as not extending beyond +1642, when the Civil War broke out and the Puritan +leaders assumed responsibility for the government.</p> + +<p>Up to that time there was but one really notable +witch alarm in England. But it was one that illustrated +again, as in Essex, the continuity of the superstition +in a given locality. The Lancashire witches of 1633 +were the direct outcome of the Lancashire witches of +1612. The story is a weird one. An eleven-year-old +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>boy played truant one day to his cattle-herding, and, as +he afterwards told the story, went plum-gathering. +When he came back he had to find a plausible excuse +to present to his parents. Now, the lad had been +brought up in the Blackburn forest, close to Pendle +Hill; he had overheard stories of Malking Tower<a name="FNanchor_147-1_2" id="FNanchor_147-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +from the chatter of gossipping women;<a name="FNanchor_147-2_3" id="FNanchor_147-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> he had shivered +as suspected women were pointed out to him; he +knew the names of some of them. His imagination, +in search for an excuse, caught at the witch motive<a name="FNanchor_147-3_4" id="FNanchor_147-3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-3_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +and elaborated it with the easy invention of youth.<a name="FNanchor_147-4_5" id="FNanchor_147-4_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_147-4_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> He +had seen two greyhounds come running towards him. +They looked like those owned by two of his neighbors. +When he saw that no one was following them, he set +out to hunt with them, and presently a hare rose very +near before him, at the sight whereof he cried "Loo, +Loo," but the dogs would not run. Being very angry, +he tied them to a little bush in the hedge and beat them, +and at once, instead of the black greyhound, "one Dick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>onson's +wife" stood up, and instead of the brown +greyhound "a little boy whom this informer knoweth +not." He started to run away, but the woman stayed +him and offered him a piece of silver "much like to a +faire shillinge" if he would not betray her. The conscientious +boy answered "Nay, thou art a witch," +"whereupon shee put her hand into her pocket againe +and pulled out a stringe like unto a bridle that gingled, +which shee put upon the litle boyes heade that stood up +in the browne greyhounds steade, whereupon the said +boy stood up a white horse." In true Arabian Nights +fashion they mounted and rode away. They came to a +new house called Hoarstones, where there were three +score or more people, and horses of several colors, and +a fire with meat roasting. They had flesh and bread +upon a trencher and they drank from glasses. After +the first taste the boy "refused and would have noe +more, and said it was nought." There were other refreshments +at the feast. The boy was, as he afterwards +confessed, familiar with the story of the feast at Malking +Tower.<a name="FNanchor_148-1_6" id="FNanchor_148-1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_148-1_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>The names of those present he did not volunteer at +first; but, on being questioned, he named eighteen<a name="FNanchor_148-2_7" id="FNanchor_148-2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_148-2_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +whom he had seen. The boy confessed that he had been +clever enough to make most of his list from those who +were already suspected by their neighbors.</p> + +<p>It needed but a match to set off the flame of witch-hatred +in Lancashire. The boy's story was quite suf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>ficient. +Whether his narrative was a spontaneous invention +of his own, concocted in emergency, as he asserted +in his confession at London, or whether it was +a carefully constructed lie taught him by his father in +order to revenge himself upon some hated neighbors, +and perhaps to exact blackmail, as some of the accused +later charged, we shall never know. In later life the +boy is said to have admitted that he had been set on by +his father,<a name="FNanchor_149-1_8" id="FNanchor_149-1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-1_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> but the narrative possesses certain earmarks +of a story struck out by a child's imagination.<a name="FNanchor_149-2_9" id="FNanchor_149-2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-2_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It is +easy enough to reconcile the two theories by supposing +that the boy started the story of his own initiative and +that his father was too shrewd not to realize the opportunity +to make a sensation and perhaps some money. +He took the boy before justices of the peace, who, with +the zeal their predecessors had displayed twenty-two +years before, made many arrests.<a name="FNanchor_149-3_10" id="FNanchor_149-3_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_149-3_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The boy was exhibited +from town to town in Lancashire as a great +wonder and witch-detector. It was in the course of +these exhibitions that he was brought to a little town +on the Lancashire border of Yorkshire and was taken +to the afternoon church service, where a young minister, +who was long afterwards to become a famous opponent +of the superstition, was discoursing to his congregation. +The boy was held up by those in charge as +if to give him the chance to detect witches among the +audience. The minister saw him, and at the end of the +service at once came down to the boy, and without par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>ley +asked him, "Good boy, tell me truly, and in earnest, +didst thou see and hear such things of the meeting of +the witches as is reported by many that thou dost relate?" +The boy, as Webster has told the story, was not +given time for reply by the men in charge of him, who +protested against such questions. The lad, they said, +had been before two justices of the peace, and had not +been catechized in that fashion.<a name="FNanchor_150-1_11" id="FNanchor_150-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_150-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>A lone skeptic had little chance to beat back the wave +of excitement created by the young Robinson's stories. +His success prompted him to concoct new tales.<a name="FNanchor_150-2_12" id="FNanchor_150-2_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_150-2_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> He +had seen Lloynd's wife sitting on a cross-bar in his +father's chimney; he had called to her; she had not +come down but had vanished in the air. Other accounts +the boy gave, but none of them revealed the +clear invention of his first narrative.</p> + +<p>He had done his work. The justices of the peace +were bringing in the accused to the assizes at Lancaster. +There Robinson was once more called upon to +render his now famous testimony. He was supported +by his father,<a name="FNanchor_150-3_13" id="FNanchor_150-3_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_150-3_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> who gave evidence that on the day he +had sent his boy for the cattle he had gone after him +and as he approached had heard him cry and had found +him quite "distracted." When the boy recovered himself, +he had related the story already told. This was +the evidence of the father, and together with that of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>son it constituted the most telling piece of testimony +presented. But it served, as was usual in such cases, +as an opening for all those who, for any reason, thought +they had grounds of suspicion against any of their +neighbors. It was recalled by one witness that a +neighbor girl could bewitch a pail and make it roll towards +her. We shall later have occasion to note the +basis of fact behind this curious accusation. There +was other testimony of an equally damaging character. +But in nearly all the cases stress was laid upon +the bodily marks. In one instance, indeed, nothing +else was charged.<a name="FNanchor_151-1_14" id="FNanchor_151-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_151-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The reader will remember that in +the Lancaster cases of 1612 the evidence of marks on +the body was notably absent, so notably that we were +led to suspect that it had been ruled out by the judge. +That such evidence was now reckoned important is +proof that this particularly dark feature of the witch +superstition was receiving increasing emphasis.</p> + +<p>How many in all were accused we do not know. +Webster, writing later, said that seventeen were found +guilty.<a name="FNanchor_151-2_15" id="FNanchor_151-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_151-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> It is possible that even a larger number were acquitted. +Certainly some were acquitted. A distinction +of some sort was made in the evidence. This makes +it all the harder to understand why the truth of Robinson's +stories was not tested in the same way in which +those of Grace Sowerbutts had been tested in 1612. +Did that detection of fraud never occur to the judges, +or had they never heard of the famous boy at Bilston? +Perhaps not they but the juries were to blame, for it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>seems that the court was not altogether satisfied with +the jury's verdict and delayed sentence. Perhaps, indeed, +the judges wrote to London about the matter. +Be that as it may, the privy council decided to take +cognizance of an affair that was already the talk of the +realm.<a name="FNanchor_152-1_16" id="FNanchor_152-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_152-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Secretaries Coke and Windebank sent instructions +to Henry Bridgeman, Bishop of Chester and successor +to that Morton who had exposed the boy of Bilston, +to examine seven of the condemned witches and +to make a report.<a name="FNanchor_152-2_17" id="FNanchor_152-2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_152-2_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Bridgeman doubtless knew of his +predecessor's success in exposing fraudulent accusations. +Before the bishop was ready to report, His Majesty +sent orders that three or four of the accused should +be brought up to London by a writ of habeas corpus. +Owing to a neglect to insert definite names, there was a +delay.<a name="FNanchor_152-3_18" id="FNanchor_152-3_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_152-3_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> It was during this interval, probably, that +Bishop Bridgeman was able to make his examination. +He found three of the seven already dead and one +hopelessly ill. The other three he questioned with great +care. Two of them, Mary Spencer, a girl of twenty, +and Frances Dickonson, the first whom Robinson had +accused, made spirited denials. Mary Spencer avowed +that her accusers had been actuated by malice against +her and her parents for several years. At the trial, she +had been unable, she said, to answer for herself, because +the noise of the crowd had been so great as to +prevent her from hearing the evidence against her. As +for the charge of bewitching a pail so that it came run<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>ning +towards her of its own accord, she declared that +she used as a child to roll a pail down-hill and to call it +after her as she ran, a perfectly natural piece of child's +play. Frances Dickonson, too, charged malice upon her +accusers, especially upon the father of Edmund Robinson. +Her husband, she said, had been unwilling to +sell him a cow without surety and had so gained his +ill-will. She went on to assert that the elder Robinson +had volunteered to withdraw the charges against her if +her husband would pay him forty shillings. This +counter charge was supported by another witness and +seemed to make a good deal of an impression on the +ecclesiastic.</p> + +<p>The third woman to be examined by the bishop was +a widow of sixty, who had not been numbered among +the original seventeen witches. She acknowledged that +she was a witch, but was, wrote the bishop, "more often +faulting in the particulars of her actions as one having +a strong imagination of the former, but of too weak a +memory to retain or relate the latter." The woman told +a commonplace story of a man in black attire who had +come to her six years before and made the usual contract. +But very curiously she could name only one +other witch, and professed to know none of those +already in gaol.</p> + +<p>Such were the results of the examinations sent in by +the bishop. In the letter which he sent along, he expressed +doubt about the whole matter. "Conceit and +malice," he wrote, "are so powerful with many in those +parts that they will easily afford an oath to work revenge +upon their neighbour." He would, he intimated, +have gone further in examining the counter charges +brought by the accused, had it not been that he hesi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>tated +to proceed against the king, that is, the +prosecution.</p> + +<p>This report doubtless confirmed the fears of the +government. The writs to the sheriff of Lancaster +were redirected, and four of the women were brought +up to London and carried to the "Ship Tavern" at +Greenwich, close to one of the royal residences.<a name="FNanchor_154-1_19" id="FNanchor_154-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_154-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Two +of His Majesty's surgeons, Alexander Baker and Sir +William Knowles, the latter of whom was accustomed +to examine candidates for the king's touch, together +with five other surgeons and ten certificated midwives, +were now ordered to make a bodily examination of the +women, under the direction of the eminent Harvey,<a name="FNanchor_154-2_20" id="FNanchor_154-2_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_154-2_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> the +king's physician, who was later to discover the circulation +of the blood. In the course of this chapter we +shall see that Harvey had long cherished misgivings +about witchcraft. Probably by this time he had come +to disbelieve it. One can but wonder if Charles, already +probably aware of Harvey's views, had not intended +from his first step in the Lancashire case to give his +physician a chance to assert his opinion. In any case +his report and that of his subordinates was entirely in +favor of the women, except that in the case of Margaret +Johnson (who had confessed) they had found +a mark, but one to which they attached little significance.<a name="FNanchor_154-3_21" id="FNanchor_154-3_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_154-3_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +The women seem to have been carried before +the king himself.<a name="FNanchor_154-4_22" id="FNanchor_154-4_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_154-4_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> We do not know, however, that he +expressed any opinion on the matter.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> +<p>The whole affair has one aspect that has been entirely +overlooked. Whatever the verdict of the privy council +and of the king may have been—and it was evidently +one of caution—they gave authorization from the highest +quarters for the use of the test of marks on the +body. That proof of witchcraft had been long known +in England and had slowly won its way into judicial +procedure until now it was recognized by the highest +powers in the kingdom. To be sure, it was probably +their purpose to annul the reckless convictions in Lancashire, +and to break down the evidence of the female +juries; but in doing so they furnished a precedent for +the witch procedure of the civil-war period.</p> + +<p>In the mean time, while the surgeons and midwives +were busy over these four women, the Robinsons, +father and son, had come to London at the summons of +the privy council.<a name="FNanchor_155-1_23" id="FNanchor_155-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> There the boy was separated from +his father. To a Middlesex justice of the peace appointed +by Secretary Windebank to take his statements +he confessed that his entire story was an invention and +had no basis of fact whatever.<a name="FNanchor_155-2_24" id="FNanchor_155-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Both father and son +were imprisoned and proceedings seem to have been instituted +against them by one of the now repentant jurymen +who had tried the case.<a name="FNanchor_155-3_25" id="FNanchor_155-3_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-3_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> How long they were +kept in prison we do not know.</p> + +<p>One would naturally suppose that the women would +be released on their return to Lancaster, but the sheriff's +records show that two years later there were still +nine witches in gaol.<a name="FNanchor_155-4_26" id="FNanchor_155-4_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_155-4_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Three of them bore the same +names as those whom Robinson pretended to have seen +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>at Hoarstones. At least one other of the nine had been +convicted in 1634, probably more. Margaret Johnson, +the single one to confess, so far as we know, was not +there. She had probably died in prison in the mean +time. We have no clue as to why the women were not +released. Perhaps public sentiment at home made the +sheriff unwilling to do it, perhaps the wretched creatures +spent two or more years in prison—for we do +not know when they got out—as a result of judicial +negligence, a negligence of which there are too many +examples in the records of the time. More likely the +king and the privy council, while doubting the charges +against the women, had been reluctant to antagonize +public sentiment by declaring them innocent.</p> + +<p>It is disagreeable to have to state that Lancaster was +not yet through with its witches. Early in the next +year the Bishop of Chester was again called upon by +the privy council to look into the cases of four women. +There was some delay, during which a dispute took +place between the bishop and the sheriff as to where +the bishop should examine the witches, whether at +Wigan, as he proposed, or at Lancaster.<a name="FNanchor_156-1_27" id="FNanchor_156-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_156-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> One suspects +that the civil authorities of the Duchy of Lancaster +may have resented the bishop's part in the affair. When +Bridgeman arrived in Lancaster he found two of the +women already dead. Of the other two, the one, he +wrote, was accused by a man formerly "distracted and +lunatic" and by a woman who was a common beggar; +the other had been long reputed a witch, but he saw +no reason to believe it. He had, he admitted, found a +small lump of flesh on her right ear.<a name="FNanchor_156-2_28" id="FNanchor_156-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_156-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Alas that the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>Bishop of Chester, like the king and the privy council, +however much he discounted the accusations of witchcraft, +had not yet wholly rid himself of one of the darkest +and most disagreeable forms of the belief that the +Evil One had bodily communication with his subjects.</p> + +<p>In one respect the affair of 1633-1634 in northern +England was singular. The social and moral character +of those accused was distinctly high. Not that +they belonged to any but the peasant class, but that they +represented a good type of farming people. Frances +Dickonson's husband evidently had some property. +Mary Spencer insisted that she was accustomed to go +to church and to repeat the sermon to her parents, and +that she was not afraid of death, for she hoped it would +make an entrance for her into heaven. Margaret Johnson +was persuaded that a man and his wife who were +in the gaol on Robinson's charges were not witches, +because the man "daily prays and reads and seems +a godly man." With this evidence of religious life, +which must have meant something as to the status of +the people in the community, should be coupled the entire +absence of stories of threats at beggars and of +quarrels between bad-tempered and loose-lived women, +stories that fill so many dreary pages of witchcraft +records. Nor is there any mention of the practice of pretended +magic.</p> + +<p>In previous chapters we have had occasion to observe +the continuity of superstition in certain localities. +It is obvious that Lancashire offers one of the best illustrations +of that principle. The connection between +the alarms of 1612 and 1633-1634 is not a matter of +theory, but can be established by definite proof. It is +perhaps not out of order to inquire, then, why Lan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>cashire +should have been so infested with witches. It +is the more necessary when we consider that there were +other witch cases in the country. Nicholas Starchie's +children gave rise to the first of the scares. It seems +likely that a certain Utley was hanged at Lancaster +in 1630 for bewitching a gentleman's child.<a name="FNanchor_158-1_29" id="FNanchor_158-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-1_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> During +Commonwealth days, as we shall find, there was an +alarm at Lancaster that probably cost two witches +their lives. No county in England except Essex had +a similar record. No explanation can be offered for +the records of these two counties save that both had +been early infected with a hatred of witches, and that +the witches came to be connected, in tradition, with +certain localities within the counties and with certain +families living there. This is, indeed, an explanation +that does not explain. It all comes back to the continuity +of superstition.</p> + +<p>We have already referred to the widespread interest +in the Lancashire witches. There are two good +illustrations of this interest. When Sir William Brereton +was travelling in Holland in June of 1634, a little +while before the four women had been brought to London, +he met King Charles's sister, the Queen of Bohemia, +and at once, apparently, they began to talk about +the great Lancashire discovery.<a name="FNanchor_158-2_30" id="FNanchor_158-2_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_158-2_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The other instance +of comment on the case was in England. It is one which +shows that playwrights were quite as eager then as now +to be abreast of current topics. Before final judgment +had been given on the Lancashire women, Thomas +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>Heywood and Richard Brome, well known dramatists, +had written a play on the subject which was at once +published and "acted at the Globe on the Bankside by +His Majesty's Actors." By some it has been supposed +that this play was an older play founded on the Lancashire +affair of 1612 and warmed over in 1634; but +the main incidents and the characters of the play are so +fully copied from the depositions of the young Robinson +and from the charges preferred against Mary +Spencer, Frances Dickonson, and Margaret Johnson, +that a layman would at once pronounce it a play written +entirely to order from the affair of 1634. Nothing +unique in the stories was left out. The pail incident—of +course without its rational explanation—was grafted +into the play and put upon the stage. Indeed, a marriage +that afforded the hook upon which to hang a +bundle of indecencies, and the story of a virtuous husband +who discovers his wife to be a witch, were the +only added motives of importance. For our purpose +the significance of the play lies of course in its testimony +to the general interest—the people of London +were obviously familiar with the details, even, of the +charges—and its probable reflection of London opinion +about the case. Throughout the five acts there +were those who maintained that there were no witches, +a recognition of the existence of such an opinion. Of +course in the play they were all, before the curtain fell, +convinced of their error. The authors, who no doubt +catered to public sentiment, were not as earnest as the +divines of their day, but they were almost as superstitious. +Heywood showed himself in another work, +<i>The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels</i>,<a name="FNanchor_159-1_31" id="FNanchor_159-1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_159-1_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> a sincere be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>liever +in witchcraft and backed his belief by the Warboys +case. Probably he had read Scot, but he was +not at all the type of man to set himself against the +tide. <i>The late Lancashire Witches</i> no doubt expressed +quite accurately London opinion. It was written, it +will be remembered, before the final outcome of the +case could be foreseen. Perhaps Heywood foresaw it, +more probably he was sailing close to the wind of opinion +when he wrote in the epilogue,</p> + +<div class="block"><div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">... "Perhaps great mercy may,</span><br /> +After just condemnation, give them day<br /> +Of longer life."<br /> +</div></div> + +<p>It is easy in discussing the Lancashire affair to miss +a central figure. Frances Dickonson, Mary Spencer, +and the others, could they have known it, owed their +lives in all probability to the intellectual independence +of William Harvey. There is a precious story about +Harvey in an old manuscript letter by an unknown +writer, that, if trustworthy, throws a light on the physician's +conduct in the case. The letter seems to have +been written by a justice of the peace in southwestern +England about 1685.<a name="FNanchor_160-1_32" id="FNanchor_160-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_160-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He had had some experience with +witches—we have mentioned them in another connection—and +he was prompted by them to tell a story +of Dr. Harvey, with whom he was "very familiarly acquainted." +"I once asked him what his opinion was +concerning witchcraft; whether there was any such +thing. Hee told mee he believed there was not." Asked +the reasons for his doubt, Harvey told him that "when +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>he was at Newmercat with the King [Charles I] he heard +there was a woman who dwelt at a lone house on the +borders of the Heath who was reputed a Witch, that +he went alone to her, and found her alone at home.... +Hee said shee was very distrustful at first, but when +hee told her he was a vizard, and came purposely to +converse with her in their common trade, then shee +easily believed him; for say'd hee to mee, 'You know +I have a very magicall face.'" The physician asked +her where her familiar was and desired to see him, +upon which she brought out a dish of milk and made +a chuckling noise, as toads do, at which a toad came +from under the chest and drank some of the milk. Harvey +now laid a plan to get rid of the woman. He suggested +that as fellow witches they ought to drink together, +and that she procure some ale. She went out to +a neighboring ale-house, half a mile away, and Harvey +availed himself of her absence to take up the toad and +cut it open. Out came the milk. On a thorough examination +he concluded that the toad "no ways differed +from other toades," but that the melancholy old woman +had brought it home some evening and had tamed it by +feeding and had so come to believe it a spirit and her +familiar. When the woman returned and found her +"familiar" cut in pieces, she "flew like a Tigris" at his +face. The physician offered her money and tried to +persuade her that her familiar was nothing more than +a toad. When he found that this did not pacify her +he took another tack and told her that he was the +king's physician, sent to discover if she were a witch, +and, in case she were, to have her apprehended. With +this explanation, Harvey was able to get away. He +related the story to the king, whose leave he had to go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +on the expedition. The narrator adds: "I am certayne +this for an argument against spirits or witchcraft is +the best and most experimentall I ever heard."</p> + +<p>Who the justice of the peace was that penned this +letter, we are unable even to guess, nor do we know +upon whose authority it was published. We cannot, +therefore, rest upon it with absolute certainty, but we +can say that it possesses several characteristics of a +<i>bona fide</i> letter.<a name="FNanchor_162-1_33" id="FNanchor_162-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_162-1_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> If it is such, it gives a new clue to +Harvey's conduct in 1634. We of course cannot be +sure that the toad incident happened before that time; +quite possibly it was after the interest aroused by that +affair that the physician made his investigation. At +all events, here was a man who had a scientific way of +looking into superstition.</p> + +<p>The advent of such a man was most significant in the +history of witchcraft, perhaps the most significant fact +of its kind in the reign of Charles I. That reign, in +spite of the Lancashire affair, was characterized by +the continuance and growth of the witch skepticism,<a name="FNanchor_162-2_34" id="FNanchor_162-2_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_162-2_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +so prevalent in the last years of the previous reign. +Disbelief was not yet aggressive, it did not block prosecutions, +but it hindered their effectiveness. The gallows +was not yet done away with, but its use had been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>greatly restrained by the central government. Superstition +was still a bird of prey, but its wings were being +clipped.<a name="FNanchor_163-1_35" id="FNanchor_163-1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_163-1_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146-1_1" id="Footnote_146-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The writer of the <i>Collection of Modern Relations</i> (London, 1693) +speaks of an execution at Oxford, but there is nothing to substantiate +it in the voluminous publications about Oxford; a Middlesex case rests +also on doubtful evidence (see appendix C, 1641).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147-1_2" id="Footnote_147-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1634-1635, 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147-2_3" id="Footnote_147-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147-3_4" id="Footnote_147-3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-3_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> This is of course theory; <i>cf.</i> Daudet's story of his childhood in "<i>Le +Pape est mort</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147-4_5" id="Footnote_147-4_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147-4_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> There seem to be five different sources for the original deposition of +young Robinson. Thomas D. Whitaker, <i>History ... of Whalley</i> (3d +ed., 1818), 213, has an imperfect transcript of the deposition as given in +the Bodleian, Dodsworth MSS., 61, ff. 45-46. James Crossley in his introduction +to Potts, <i>Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of +Lancaster</i> (Chetham Soc.), lix-lxxii, has copied the deposition given by +Whitaker. Thomas Wright, <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i>, II, 112-114, +has given the story from a copy of this and of other depositions in Lord +Londesborough's MSS. Webster prints a third copy, <i>Displaying of Supposed +Witchcraft</i>, 347-349. A fourth is in Edward Baines, <i>History of the +... county ... of Lancaster</i>, ed. of 1836, I, 604, and is taken from Brit. +Mus., Harleian MSS., cod. 6854, f. 26 b. A fifth is in the Bodleian, +Rawlinson MSS., D, 399, f. 211. Wright's source we have not in detail, +but the other four, while differing slightly as to punctuation, spelling, +and names, agree remarkably well as to the details of the story.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148-1_6" id="Footnote_148-1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148-1_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1634-1635, 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148-2_7" id="Footnote_148-2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148-2_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> John Stearne, <i>A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft ... +together with the Confessions of many of those executed since May +1645</i> (London, 1648), 11, says that in Lancashire "nineteene assembled." +Robinson's deposition as printed by Webster, <i>Displaying of Supposed +Witchcraft</i>, gives nineteen names.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149-1_8" id="Footnote_149-1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-1_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Webster, <i>op. cit.</i>, 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149-2_9" id="Footnote_149-2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-2_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The boy, in his first examinations at London, said he had made up the +story himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149-3_10" id="Footnote_149-3_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149-3_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> It is a curious thing that one of the justices of the peace was John +Starchie, who had been one of the bewitched boys of the Starchie family +at Cleworth in 1597. See above, ch. IV. See Baines, <i>Lancaster</i>, ed. of +1868-1870, I, 204.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150-1_11" id="Footnote_150-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> This incident is related by Webster, <i>op. cit.</i>, 276-278. Webster tells +us that the boy was yet living when he wrote, and that he himself had +heard the whole story from his mouth more than once. He appends to his +volume the original deposition of the lad (at Padiham, February 10 +1633/4).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150-2_12" id="Footnote_150-2_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150-2_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> These are given in the same deposition, but the deposition probably +represents the boy's statement at the assizes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150-3_13" id="Footnote_150-3_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150-3_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The father had been a witness at the Lancashire trials in 1612. See +Baines, <i>Lancaster</i>, ed. of 1868-1870, I, 204-205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151-1_14" id="Footnote_151-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> That is, of course, so far as we have evidence. It is a little dangerous +to hold to absolute negatives.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151-2_15" id="Footnote_151-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Webster, <i>op. cit.</i>, 277. Pelham on May 16, 1634, wrote: "It is said +that 19 are condemned and ... 60 already discovered." <i>Cal. St. P., +Dom.</i>, 1634-1635, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152-1_16" id="Footnote_152-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> It had been reported in London that witches had raised a storm from +which Charles had suffered at sea. Pelham's letter, <i>ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152-2_17" id="Footnote_152-2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152-2_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 77. See also Council Register (MS.), Charles I, vol. IV, p. 658.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152-3_18" id="Footnote_152-3_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152-3_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XII, 2, p. 53. The chancellor of the +Duchy of Lancaster wrote in the meantime that the judges had been to +see him. What was to be done with the witches?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154-1_19" id="Footnote_154-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, X, 2, p. 147; and <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., +1634-1635</i>, 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154-2_20" id="Footnote_154-2_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154-2_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1634-1635, 98, 129. See also Council Register +(MS.), Chas. I, vol. V, p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154-3_21" id="Footnote_154-3_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154-3_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1634-1635, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154-4_22" id="Footnote_154-4_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154-4_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Webster, <i>op. cit.</i>, 277, says that they were examined "after by His +Majesty and the Council."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155-1_23" id="Footnote_155-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See Council Register (MS.), Charles I, vol. IV, p. 657.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155-2_24" id="Footnote_155-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1634-1635</i>, 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155-3_25" id="Footnote_155-3_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-3_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155-4_26" id="Footnote_155-4_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155-4_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Farington Papers</i> (Chetham Soc, no. 39, 1856), 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156-1_27" id="Footnote_156-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XII, 2, p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156-2_28" id="Footnote_156-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158-1_29" id="Footnote_158-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-1_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Baines, <i>Lancaster</i>, ed. of 1868-1870, II, 12. Utley, who was a professed +conjurer, was alleged to have bewitched to death one Assheton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158-2_30" id="Footnote_158-2_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158-2_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and +Ireland, 1634-1635, by Sir William Brereton, Bart.</i> (Chetham Soc., no. 1. +1844), 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159-1_31" id="Footnote_159-1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159-1_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> (London, 1635.) As to Heywood see also chapter X.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160-1_32" id="Footnote_160-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The correspondent who sent a copy of the MS. to the <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i> signs himself "B. C. T." I have been unable to identify +him. For his account of the MS. and for its contents see <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. I, 405-410, 489-492.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162-1_33" id="Footnote_162-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162-1_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> John Aubrey, <i>Letters written by Eminent Persons</i> (London, 1813), +II, 379, says that Harvey "had made dissections of froggs, toads and a +number of other animals, and had curious observations on them." This +fits in well with the story, and in some measure goes to confirm it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162-2_34" id="Footnote_162-2_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162-2_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> For example, in 1637 the Bishop of Bath and Wells sent Joice Hunniman +to Lord Wrottesley to examine her and exonerate her. He did so, +and the bishop wrote thanking him and abusing "certain apparitors who +go about frightening the people." See <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, II, +app., p. 48. For a case of the acquittal of a witch and the exposure of the +pretended convulsions of her accuser, see <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1635</i>, 477. +For example of suits for slander see North Riding Rec. Soc, IV, 182, +session July 9, 1640.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163-1_35" id="Footnote_163-1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163-1_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> A solitary pamphlet of this period must be mentioned. It was entitled: +<i>Fearefull Newes from Coventry, or A true Relation and Lamentable +Story of one Thomas Holt of Coventry a Musitian who through +Covetousnesse and immoderate love of money, sold himselfe to the +Devill, with whom he had made a contract for certaine yeares—And also +of his Lamentable end and death, on the 16 day of February 1641</i> +(London, 1642). The "sad subject of this little treatise" was a musician +with nineteen children. Fearing that he would not be able to provide +for them, he is alleged to have made a contract with the Devil, who finally +broke his neck.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Matthew Hopkins.</h3> + + +<p>In the annals of English witchcraft Matthew Hopkins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +occupies a place by himself. For more than two +years he was the arch-instigator in prosecutions which, +at least in the numbers of those executed, mark the +high tide of the delusion. His name was one hardly +known by his contemporaries, but he has since become +a figure in the annals of English roguery. Very recently +his life has found record among those of "Twelve +Bad Men."<a name="FNanchor_164-1_1" id="FNanchor_164-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_164-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>What we know of him up to the time of his first appearance +in his successful rôle about March of 1644/5 +is soon told. He was the son of James Hopkins, +minister of Wenham<a name="FNanchor_164-2_2" id="FNanchor_164-2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_164-2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> in Suffolk. He was "a lawyer of +but little note" at Ipswich, thence removing to Manningtree. +Whether he may have been the Matthew Hopkins +of Southwark who complained in 1644 of inability +to pay the taxes<a name="FNanchor_164-3_3" id="FNanchor_164-3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_164-3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> is more than doubtful, but there is +reason enough to believe that he found the law no very +remunerative profession. He was ready for some +new venture and an accidental circumstance in Manningtree +turned him into a wholly new field of endeavor. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>He assumed the rôle of a witchfinder and is said to have +taken the title of witchfinder-general.<a name="FNanchor_165-1_4" id="FNanchor_165-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_165-1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>He had made little or no preparation for the work +that now came to his hand. King James's famous +<i>Dæmonologie</i> he was familiar with, but he may have +studied it after his first experiences at Manningtree. +It seems somewhat probable, too, that he had read, and +indeed been much influenced by, the account of the +Lancashire witches of 1612, as well as by Richard +Bernard's <i>Advice to Grand Jurymen</i>. But, if he read +the latter book, he seems altogether to have misinterpreted +it. As to his general information and education, +we have no data save the hints to be gained from his +own writings. His letter to John Gaule and the little +brochure which he penned in self-defence reveal a man +able to express himself with some clearness and with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>a great deal of vigor. There were force of character +and nervous energy behind his defiant words. It is no +exaggeration, as we shall see in following his career, to +say that the witch crusader was a man of action, who +might in another field have made his mark.</p> + +<p>To know something of his religious proclivities would +be extremely interesting. On this point, however, he +gives us no clue. But his fellow worker, John Stearne, +was clearly a Puritan<a name="FNanchor_166-1_5" id="FNanchor_166-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_166-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and Hopkins was surely of the +same faith. It can hardly be proved, however, that +religious zeal prompted him in his campaign. For a +time of spiritual earnestness his utterances seem rather +lukewarm.</p> + +<p>It was in his own town that his attention was first +directed towards the dangers of witchcraft. The +witches, he tells us, were accustomed to hold their +meetings near his house. During one of their assemblies +he overheard a witch bid her imps to go to another +witch. The other witch, whose name was thus revealed +to him—Elizabeth Clarke, a poor one-legged creature—was +promptly taken into custody on Hopkins's charge.<a name="FNanchor_166-2_6" id="FNanchor_166-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_166-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +Other accusations poured in. John Rivet had consulted +a cunning woman about the illness of his wife, and had +learned that two neighbors were responsible. One of +these, he was told, dwelt a little above his own home; +"whereupon he beleeved his said wife was bewitched +by ... Elizabeth Clarke, ... for that the said Elizabeth's +mother and some other of her kinsfolke did suffer +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>death for witchcraft." The justices of the peace<a name="FNanchor_167-1_7" id="FNanchor_167-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_167-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> accordingly +had her "searched by women who had for +many yeares known the Devill's marks," and, when +these were found on her, they bade her custodians "keep +her from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that +time to see her familiars."<a name="FNanchor_167-2_8" id="FNanchor_167-2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_167-2_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>Torture is unknown to English law; but, in our day +of the "third degree," nobody needs to be told that +what is put out at the door may steal in at the window. +It may be that, in the seventeenth century, the pious +English justices had no suspicion that enforced sleeplessness +is a form of physical torture more nerve-racking +and irresistible than the thumb-screw. Three +days and nights of "watching" brought Elizabeth +Clarke to "confess many things"; and when, on the +fourth night, her townsmen Hopkins and Stearne dropped +in to fill out from her own lips the warrants against +those she had named as accomplices, she told them that, +if they would stay and do her no hurt, she would call +one of her imps.</p> + +<p>Hopkins told her that he would not allow it, but he +stayed. Within a quarter of an hour the imps appeared, +six of them, one after another. The first was +a "white thing in the likeness of a Cat, but not altogether +so big," the second a white dog with some sandy +spots and very short legs, the third, Vinegar Tom, was a +greyhound with long legs. We need not go further into +the story. The court records give the testimony of +Hopkins and Stearne. Both have related the affair in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>their pamphlets.<a name="FNanchor_168-1_9" id="FNanchor_168-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Six others, four of whom were +women, made oath to the appearances of the imps. In +this respect the trial is unique among all in English +history. Eight people testified that they had seen the +imps.<a name="FNanchor_168-2_10" id="FNanchor_168-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Two of them referred elsewhere to what they +had seen, and their accounts agreed substantially.<a name="FNanchor_168-3_11" id="FNanchor_168-3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_168-3_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> It +may be doubted if the supporting evidence offered at +any trial in the seventeenth century in England went +so far towards establishing the actual appearance of +the so-called imps of the witches.</p> + +<p>How are we to account for these phenomena? What +was the nature of the delusion seemingly shared by +eight people? It is for the psychologist to answer. +Two explanations occur to the layman. It is not inconceivable +that there were rodents in the gaol—the +terrible conditions in the gaols of the time are too well +known to need description—and that the creatures running +about in the dark were easily mistaken by excited +people for something more than natural. It is possible, +too, that all the appearances were the fabric of imagination +or invention. The spectators were all in a state +of high expectation of supernatural appearances. What +the over-alert leaders declared they had seen the others +would be sure to have seen. Whether those leaders +were themselves deceived, or easily duped the others +by calling out the description of what they claimed to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>see, would be hard to guess. To the writer the latter +theory seems less plausible. The accounts of the two +are so clearly independent and yet agree so well in fact +that they seem to weaken the case for collusive imposture. +With that a layman may be permitted to leave +the matter. What hypnotic possibilities are inherent +in the story he cannot profess to know. Certainly the +accused woman was not a professed dealer in magic +and it is not easy to suspect her of having hypnotized +the watchers.</p> + +<p>Upon Elizabeth Clarke's confessions five other +women—"the old beldam" Anne West, who had "been +suspected as a witch many yeers since, and suffered imprisonment +for the same,"<a name="FNanchor_169-1_12" id="FNanchor_169-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_169-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> her daughter Rebecca,<a name="FNanchor_169-2_13" id="FNanchor_169-2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_169-2_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +Anne Leech, her daughter Helen Clarke, and Elizabeth +Gooding—were arrested. As in the case of the +first, there was soon abundance of evidence offered about +them. One Richard Edwards bethought himself and +remembered that while crossing a bridge he had heard +a cry, "much like the shrieke of a Polcat," and had +been nearly thrown from his horse. He had also lost +some cattle by a mysterious disease. Moreover his +child had been nursed by a goodwife who lived near to +Elizabeth Clarke and Elizabeth Gooding. The child +fell sick, "rowling the eyes," and died. He believed +that Anne Leech and Elizabeth Gooding were the cause +of its death. His belief, however, which was offered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>as an independent piece of testimony, seems to have +rested on Anne Leech's confession, which had been +made before this time and was soon given to the justices +of the peace. Robert Taylor charged Elizabeth +Gooding with the death of his horse, but he too had +the suggestion from other witnesses. Prudence Hart +declared that, being in her bed in the night, "something +fell down on her right side." "Being dark she +cannot tell in what shape it was, but she believeth +Rebecca West and Anne West the cause of her pains."</p> + +<p>But the accusers could hardly outdo the accused. No +sooner was a crime suggested than they took it upon +themselves. It seemed as if the witches were running +a race for position as high criminal. With the exception +of Elizabeth Gooding, who stuck to it that she was not +guilty, they cheerfully confessed that they had lamed +their victims, caused them to "languish," and even +killed them. The meetings at Elizabeth Clarke's house +were recalled. Anne Leech remembered that there was +a book read "wherein shee thinks there was no goodnesse."<a name="FNanchor_170-1_14" id="FNanchor_170-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_170-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>So the web of charges and counter-charges was spun +until twenty-three or more women were caught in its +meshes. No less than twelve of them confessed to a +share in the most revolting crimes. But there was one +who, in court, retracted her confession.<a name="FNanchor_170-2_15" id="FNanchor_170-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_170-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> At least +five utterly denied their guilt. Among them was a +poor woman who had aroused suspicion chiefly because +a young hare had been seen in front of her house. She +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>was ready to admit that she had seen the hare, but denied +all the more serious charges.<a name="FNanchor_171-1_16" id="FNanchor_171-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_171-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Another of those +who would not plead guilty sought to ward off charges +against herself by adding to the charges accumulated +against her mother. Hers was a damning accusation. +Her mother had threatened her and the next night she +"felt something come into the bed about her legges, +... but could not finde anything." This was as serious +evidence as that of one of the justices of the +peace, who testified from the bench that a very honest +friend of his had seen three or four imps come out +of Anne West's house in the moonlight. Hopkins was +not to be outshone by the other accusers. He had visited +Colchester castle to interview Rebecca West and had +gained her confession that she had gone through a +wedding ceremony with the Devil.</p> + +<p>But why go into details? The evidence was all of a +kind. The female juries figured, as in the trials at +Lancaster in 1633, and gave the results of their harrowing +examinations. What with their verdicts and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>the mass of accusations and confessions, the justices of +the peace were busy during March, April, and May of +1645. It was not until the twenty-ninth of July that +the trial took place. It was held at Chelmsford before +the justices of the peace and Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick. +Warwick was not an itinerant justice, nor was +he, so far as we know, in any way connected with the +judicial system. One of the most prominent Presbyterians +in England, he had in April of this year, as +a result of the "self-denying ordinance," laid down +his commission as head of the navy. He disappears +from view until August, when he was again given work +to do. In the mean time occurred the Chelmsford trial. +We can only guess that the earl, who was appointed +head of the Eastern Association less than a month +later<a name="FNanchor_172-1_17" id="FNanchor_172-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_172-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> (August 27), acted in this instance in a military +capacity. The assizes had been suspended. No doubt +some of the justices of the peace pressed upon him the +urgency of the cases to be tried. We may guess that +he sat with them in the quarter sessions, but he seems to +have played the rôle of an itinerant justice.</p> + +<p>No narrative account of the trial proper is extant. +Some one who signs himself "H. F." copied out and +printed the evidence taken by the justices of the peace +and inserted in the margins the verdicts. In this +way we know that at least sixteen were condemned, +probably two more, and possibly eleven or twelve +more.<a name="FNanchor_172-2_18" id="FNanchor_172-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_172-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Of the original sixteen, one was reprieved, one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>died before execution, four were hanged at Manningtree +and ten at Chelmsford.</p> + +<p>The cases excited some comment, and it is comment +that must not be passed over, for it will prove of some +use later in analyzing the causes of the outbreak. Arthur +Wilson, whom we have mentioned as an historian +of the time, has left his verdict on the trial. "There is +nothing," he wrote, "so crosse to my temper as putting +so many witches to death." He saw nothing, in the +women condemned at Chelmsford, "other than poore +mellenchollie ... ill-dieted atrabilious constitutions, +whose fancies working by grosse fumes and vapors +might make the imagination readie to take any impression." +Wilson wrestled long with his God over the +matter of witches and came at length to the conclusion +that "it did not consist with the infinite goodnes of +the Almightie God to let Satan loose in so ravenous a +way."</p> + +<p>The opinion of a parliamentary journal in London +on the twenty-fourth of July, three days before the +Essex executions, shows that the Royalists were inclined +to remark the number of witches in the counties +friendly to Parliament: "It is the ordinary mirth of the +Malignants in this City to discourse of the Association +of Witches in the Associated Counties, but by this they +shall understand the truth of the old Proverbe, which +is that where God hath his Church, the Devill hath his +Chappell." The writer goes on, "I am sory to informe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>you that one of the cheifest of them was a Parsons +Wife (this will be good news with the Papists).... +Her name was Weight.... This Woman (as I heare) +was the first apprehended."<a name="FNanchor_174-1_19" id="FNanchor_174-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> It seems, however, that +Mrs. "Weight" escaped. Social and religious influences +were not without value. A later pamphleteer tells +us that the case of Mrs. Wayt, a minister's wife, was a +"palpable mistake, for it is well knowne that she is a +gentle-woman of a very godly and religious life."<a name="FNanchor_174-2_20" id="FNanchor_174-2_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-2_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>Meantime Hopkins had extended his operations +into Suffolk. Elizabeth Clarke and Anne Leech had +implicated certain women in that county. Their charges +were carried before the justices of the peace and were +the beginning of a panic which spread like wildfire +over the county.</p> + +<p>The methods which the witchfinder-general used +are illuminating. Four searchers were appointed for +the county, two men and two women.<a name="FNanchor_174-3_21" id="FNanchor_174-3_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-3_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> "In what +Town soever ... there be any person or persons suspected +to be witch or Witches, thither they send for two +or all of the said searchers, who take the partie or parties +so suspected into a Roome and strip him, her, or +them, starke naked."<a name="FNanchor_174-4_22" id="FNanchor_174-4_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-4_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The clergyman Gaule has given +us further particulars:<a name="FNanchor_174-5_23" id="FNanchor_174-5_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_174-5_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> "Having taken the suspected +Witch, shee is placed in the middle of a room upon a +stool, or Table, crosse-legg'd, or in some other uneasie +posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>with cords; there is she watcht and kept without meat or +sleep for the space of 24 hours.... A little hole is likewise +made in the door for the Impe to come in at; and +lest it might come in some lesse discernible shape, they +that watch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping the +room, and if they see any spiders or flyes, to kill them. +And if they cannot kill them, then they may be sure +they are her Impes."<a name="FNanchor_175-1_24" id="FNanchor_175-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_175-1_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Hutchinson tells a story of one +woman, who, after having been kept long fasting and +without sleep, confessed to keeping an imp called Nan. +But a "very learned ingenious gentleman having indignation +at the thing" drove the people from the +house, gave the woman some food, and sent her to bed. +Next morning she knew of no Nan but a pullet she +had.</p> + +<p>The most sensational discovery in Suffolk was that +John Lowes, pastor of Brandeston, was a witch. The +case was an extraordinary one and throws a light on +the witch alarms of the time. Lowes was eighty years +old, and had been pastor in the same place for fifty +years. He got into trouble, undoubtedly as a result of +his inability to get along with those around him. As a +young man he had been summoned to appear before +the synod at Ipswich for not conforming to the rites +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>of the Established Church.<a name="FNanchor_176-1_25" id="FNanchor_176-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> In the first year of +Charles's reign he had been indicted for refusing to exhibit +his musket,<a name="FNanchor_176-2_26" id="FNanchor_176-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> and he had twice later been indicted +for witchcraft and once as a common imbarritor.<a name="FNanchor_176-3_27" id="FNanchor_176-3_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-3_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The +very fact that he had been charged with witchcraft +before would give color to the charge when made in +1645. We have indeed a clue to the motives for this +accusation. A parishioner and a neighboring divine +afterwards gave it as their opinion that "Mr. Lowes, +being a litigious man, made his parishioners (too tenacious +of their customs) very uneasy, so that they were +glad to take the opportunity of those wicked times to +get him hanged, rather than not get rid of him." +Hopkins had afforded them the opportunity. The +witchfinder had taken the parson in hand. He had +caused him to be kept awake several nights together, +and had run him backwards and forwards about the +room until he was out of breath. "Then they rested +him a little and then ran him again, and this they did +for several days and nights together, till he was weary +of his life and scarce sensible of what he said or did."<a name="FNanchor_176-4_28" id="FNanchor_176-4_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_176-4_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +He had, when first accused, denied all charges and +challenged proof, but after he had been subjected to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>these rigorous methods he made a full confession. He +had, he said, sunk a sailing vessel of Ipswich, making +fourteen widows in a quarter of an hour. The witchfinder +had asked him if it did not grieve him to see +so many men cast away in a short time, and he answered: +"No, he was joyfull to see what power his +Impes had."<a name="FNanchor_177-1_29" id="FNanchor_177-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_177-1_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> He had, he boasted, a charm to keep +him out of gaol and from the gallows. It is too bad +that the crazed man's confidence in his charm was misplaced. +His whole wild confession is an illustration of +the effectiveness of the torture. His fate is indicative +of the hysteria of the times and of the advantages taken +of it by malicious people. It was his hostility to the +ecclesiastical and political sympathies of his community +that caused his fall.</p> + +<p>The dementia induced by the torture in Lowes's +case showed itself in the case of others, who made confessions +of long careers of murder. "These and all +the rest confessed that cruell malice ... was their +chiefe delight." The accused were being forced by +cruel torture to lend their help to a panic which exceeded +any before or after in England. From one hundred +and thirty to two hundred people<a name="FNanchor_177-2_30" id="FNanchor_177-2_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_177-2_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> were soon under +accusation and shut up in Bury gaol.</p> + +<p>News of this reached a Parliament in London that +was very much engrossed with other matters. We +cannot do better than to quote the Puritan biographer +Clarke.<a name="FNanchor_177-3_31" id="FNanchor_177-3_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_177-3_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> "A report was carried to the Parliament +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>... as if some busie men had made use of some ill +Arts to extort such confession; ... thereupon a special +Commission of Oyer and Terminer was granted for the +trial of these Witches." Care was to be used, in gathering +evidence, that confessions should be voluntary +and should be backed by "many collateral circumstances." +There were to be no convictions except +upon proof of express compact with the Devil, or upon +evidence of the use of imps, which implied the same +thing. Samuel Fairclough and Edmund Calamy (the +elder), both of them Non-Conformist clergymen of +Suffolk,<a name="FNanchor_178-1_32" id="FNanchor_178-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_178-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> together with Serjeant John Godbolt and the +justices of the peace, were to compose this special +court. The court met about the end of August, a month +after the sessions under Warwick at Chelmsford, and +was opened by two sermons preached by Mr. Fairclough +in Bury church. One of the first things done +by the special court, quite possibly at the instigation +of the two clergymen, was to put an end to the swimming +test,<a name="FNanchor_178-2_33" id="FNanchor_178-2_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_178-2_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> which had been used on several of the accused, +doubtless by the authority of the justices of the +peace. This was of course in some sense a blow at +Hopkins. Nevertheless a great deal of the evidence +which he had gathered must have been taken into account. +Eighteen persons, including two men,<a name="FNanchor_178-3_34" id="FNanchor_178-3_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_178-3_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> were +condemned to be hanged.<a name="FNanchor_178-4_35" id="FNanchor_178-4_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_178-4_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> On the night before their +execution, they were confined in a barn, where they +made an agreement not to confess a word at the gallows +the following day, and sang a psalm in confirma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>tion. +Next day they "dyed ... very desperately."<a name="FNanchor_179-1_36" id="FNanchor_179-1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-1_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +But there were still one hundred and twenty others in +gaol<a name="FNanchor_179-2_37" id="FNanchor_179-2_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-2_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> awaiting trial. No doubt many forthwith would +have met the same end, had it not been for a lucky +chance of the wars. The king's forces were approaching +and the court hastened to adjourn its sessions.<a name="FNanchor_179-3_38" id="FNanchor_179-3_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-3_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>But this danger was soon over, and within three +weeks' time the court seems to have resumed its duties.<a name="FNanchor_179-4_39" id="FNanchor_179-4_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-4_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +Of this second session we know nothing at all, save that +probably forty or fifty more witches were condemned, +and doubtless executed.<a name="FNanchor_179-5_40" id="FNanchor_179-5_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_179-5_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> What became of the others +we can only guess. Perhaps some were released, some +left in gaol indefinitely.</p> + +<p>These things were not done in a corner. Yet so +great was the distraction in England that, if we can +trust negative evidence, they excited not a great deal +of notice. Such comments as there were, however, +were indicative of a division of opinion. During the interval +between the two sessions, the <i>Moderate Intelligencer</i>, +a parliamentary organ that had sprung up in +the time of the Civil War, came out in an editorial on +the affair. "But whence is it that Devils should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +choose to be conversant with silly Women that know +not their right hands from their left, is the great wonder.... +They will meddle with none but poore old +Women: as appears by what we received this day +from Bury.... Divers are condemned and some executed +and more like to be. Life is precious and there +is need of great inquisition before it is taken away."<a name="FNanchor_180-1_41" id="FNanchor_180-1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-1_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>This was the sole newspaper reference of which we +know, as well as the only absolutely contemporary +mention of these trials. What other expressions of +opinion there were came later. James Howell, a popular +essayist of his time, mentioned the trials in his correspondence +as new proof of the reality of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_180-2_42" id="FNanchor_180-2_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-2_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> +The pious Bishop Hall saw in them the "prevalency +of Satan in these times."<a name="FNanchor_180-3_43" id="FNanchor_180-3_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-3_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Thomas Ady, who in 1656 +issued his <i>Candle in the Dark</i>, mentioned the "Berry +Assizes"<a name="FNanchor_180-4_44" id="FNanchor_180-4_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-4_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and remarked that some credulous people +had published a book about it. He thought criticism +deserved for taking the evidence of the gaoler, whose +profit lay in having the greatest possible number executed.<a name="FNanchor_180-5_45" id="FNanchor_180-5_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_180-5_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>We have already described Hopkins as a man +of action. Nothing is better evidence of it than the +way in which he hurried back and forth over the eastern +counties. During the last part of May he had +probably been occupied with collecting the evidence +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>against the accused at Bury. Long before they were +tried he was busy elsewhere. We can trace his movements +in outline only, but we know enough of them to +appreciate his tremendous energy. Some time about +the beginning of June he must have gone to Norfolk. +Before the twenty-sixth of July twenty witches had +been executed in that county.<a name="FNanchor_181-1_46" id="FNanchor_181-1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-1_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> None of the details of +these trials have been left us. From the rapidity with +which they were carried to completion we may feel +fairly certain that the justices of the peace, seeing no +probability of assize sessions in the near future, went +ahead to try cases on their own initiative.<a name="FNanchor_181-2_47" id="FNanchor_181-2_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-2_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> On the +fifteenth of August the corporation of Great Yarmouth, +at the southern extremity of the Norfolk coast line, +voted to send for Mr. Hopkins, and that he should have +his fee and allowance for his pains,<a name="FNanchor_181-3_48" id="FNanchor_181-3_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-3_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> "as he hath in +other places." He came at two different times, once +in September and once in December. Probably the +burden of the work was turned over to the four female +assistants, who were granted a shilling a day apiece.<a name="FNanchor_181-4_49" id="FNanchor_181-4_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-4_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +Six women were condemned, one of whom was respited.<a name="FNanchor_181-5_50" id="FNanchor_181-5_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_181-5_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +Later three other women and one man were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>indicted, but by this time the furor against them seems +to have abated, and they probably went free.<a name="FNanchor_182-1_51" id="FNanchor_182-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-1_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>Hopkins's further course can be traced with some degree +of certainty. From Yarmouth he probably went +to Ipswich, where Mother Lakeland was burned on +September 9 at the instance of the justices of the +peace.<a name="FNanchor_182-2_52" id="FNanchor_182-2_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-2_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Mother Lakeland's death by burning is the second +instance we have, during the Hopkins panic,<a name="FNanchor_182-3_53" id="FNanchor_182-3_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-3_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> of +this form of sentence. It is explained by the fact that +it was the law in England to burn women who murdered +their husbands. The chief charge against Mother +Lakeland, who, by the way, was a woman quite above +the class from which witches were ordinarily recruited,<a name="FNanchor_182-4_54" id="FNanchor_182-4_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-4_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> +was that she had bewitched her husband to +death.<a name="FNanchor_182-5_55" id="FNanchor_182-5_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-5_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> The crime was "petty treason."</p> + +<p>It is not a wild guess that Hopkins paused long +enough in his active career to write an account of the +affair, so well were his principles of detection presented +in a pamphlet soon issued from a London press.<a name="FNanchor_182-6_56" id="FNanchor_182-6_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_182-6_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> But, +at any rate, before Mother Lakeland had been burned +he was on his way to Aldeburgh, where he was already +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>at work on the eighth of September collecting evidence.<a name="FNanchor_183-1_57" id="FNanchor_183-1_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-1_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> +Here also he had an assistant, Goody Phillips, +who no doubt continued the work after he left. He was +back again in Aldeburgh on the twentieth of December +and the seventh of January, and the grand result +of his work was summarized in the brief account: +"Paid ... eleven shillings for hanging seven witches."<a name="FNanchor_183-2_58" id="FNanchor_183-2_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-2_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p>From Aldeburgh, Hopkins may have journeyed to +Stowmarket. We do not know how many servants of +the evil one he discovered here; but, as he was paid +twenty-three pounds<a name="FNanchor_183-3_59" id="FNanchor_183-3_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-3_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> for his services, and had received +but six pounds in Aldeburgh, the presumption is +that his work here was very fruitful in results.</p> + +<p>We now lose track of the witchfinder's movements +for a while. Probably he was doubling on his track +and attending court sessions. In December we know +that he made his second visit to Yarmouth. From there +he may have gone to King's Lynn, where two witches +were hanged this year, and from there perhaps returned +early in January to Aldeburgh and other places +in Suffolk. It is not to be supposed for a moment that +his activities were confined to the towns named. At +least fifteen other places in Suffolk are mentioned by +Stearne in his stories of the witches' confessions.<a name="FNanchor_183-4_60" id="FNanchor_183-4_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_183-4_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> +While Hopkins's subordinates probably represented +him in some of the villages, we cannot doubt that the +witchfinder himself visited many towns.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>From East Anglia Hopkins went westward into Cambridgeshire. +His arrival there must have been during +either January or February. His reputation, indeed, +had gone ahead of him, and the witches were reported +to have taken steps in advance to prevent detection.<a name="FNanchor_184-1_61" id="FNanchor_184-1_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-1_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> +But their efforts were vain. The witchfinder found not +less than four or five of the detested creatures,<a name="FNanchor_184-2_62" id="FNanchor_184-2_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-2_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> probably +more. We know, however, of only one execution, +that of a woman who fell under suspicion because she +kept a tame frog.<a name="FNanchor_184-3_63" id="FNanchor_184-3_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-3_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> + +<p>From Cambridgeshire, Hopkins's course took him, +perhaps in March of 1645/6, into Northamptonshire. +There he found at least two villages infested, and he +turned up some remarkable evidence. So far in his +crusade, the keeping of imps had been the test infallible +upon which the witchfinder insisted. But at +Northampton spectral evidence seems to have played +a considerable part.<a name="FNanchor_184-4_64" id="FNanchor_184-4_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_184-4_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Hopkins never expresses his +opinion on this variety of evidence, but his co-worker +declares that it should be used with great caution, because +"apparitions may proceed from the phantasie +of such as the party use to fear or at least suspect."</p> + +<p>But it was a case in Northamptonshire of a different +type that seems to have made the most lasting impression +on Stearne. Cherrie of Thrapston, "a very aged +man," had in a quarrel uttered the wish that his neighbor's +tongue might rot out. The neighbor thereupon +suffered from something which we should probably +call cancer of the tongue. Perhaps as yet the possibilities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +of suggestion have not been so far sounded +that we can absolutely discredit the physical effects of a +malicious wish. It is much easier, however, to believe +the reported utterance imagined after its supposed effect. +At all events, Cherrie was forced to confess that +he had been guilty and he further admitted that he had +injured Sir John Washington, who had been his benefactor +at various times.<a name="FNanchor_185-1_65" id="FNanchor_185-1_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-1_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> He was indicted by the grand +jury, but died in gaol, very probably by suicide, on +the day when he was to have been tried.<a name="FNanchor_185-2_66" id="FNanchor_185-2_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-2_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>From Northamptonshire Hopkins's course led him +into Huntingdonshire,<a name="FNanchor_185-3_67" id="FNanchor_185-3_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-3_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> a county that seems to have +been untroubled by witch alarms since the Warboys +affair of 1593. The justices of the peace took up the +quest eagerly. The evidence that they gathered had +but little that was unusual.<a name="FNanchor_185-4_68" id="FNanchor_185-4_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_185-4_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Mary Chandler had despatched +her imp, Beelzebub, to injure a neighbor who +had failed to invite her to a party. An accused witch +who was questioned about other possible witches offered +in evidence a peculiar piece of testimony. He +had a conversation with "Clarke's sonne of Keiston," +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>who had said to him (the witness): "I doe not beleeve +you die a Witch, for I never saw you at our meetings." +This would seem to have been a clever fiction to ward +off charges against himself. But, strangely enough, the +witness declared that he answered "that perhaps their +meetings were at severall places."</p> + +<p>Hopkins did not find it all smooth sailing in the +county of Huntingdon. A clergyman of Great Staughton +became outraged at his work and preached against +it. The witchfinder had been invited to visit the town +and hesitated. Meantime he wrote this blustering letter +to one of John Gaule's parishioners.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"><p>"My service to your Worship presented, I have this +day received a Letter, &c.—to come to a Towne called +Great Staughton to search for evil disposed persons +called Witches (though I heare your Minister is farre +against us through ignorance) I intend to come (God +willing) the sooner to heare his singular Judgment on +the behalfe of such parties; I have known a Minister in +Suffolke preach as much against their discovery in a +Pulpit, and forc'd to recant it (by the Committee) in +the same place. I much marvaile such evill Members<a name="FNanchor_186-1_69" id="FNanchor_186-1_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_186-1_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> +should have any (much more any of the Clergy) who +should daily preach Terrour to convince such Offenders, +stand up to take their parts against such as +are Complainants for the King, and sufferers themselves +with their Families and Estates. I intend to give +your Towne a Visite suddenly, I am to come to Kimbolton +this weeke, and it shall bee tenne to one but I will +come to your Town first, but I would certainely know +afore whether your Town affords many Sticklers for +such Cattell, or willing to give and afford us good welcome +and entertainment, as other where I have beene, +else I shall wave your Shire (not as yet beginning in any +part of it my selfe) And betake me to such places where +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>I doe and may persist without controle, but with +thankes and recompence."<a name="FNanchor_187-1_70" id="FNanchor_187-1_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_187-1_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p></div> + +<p>This stirred the fighting spirit of the vicar of Great +Staughton, and he answered the witchfinder in a little +book which he published shortly after, and which he +dedicated to Colonel Walton of the House of Commons. +We shall have occasion in another chapter to +note its point of view.</p> + +<p>In spite of opposition, Hopkins's work in Huntingdonshire +prospered. The justices of the peace were +occupied with examinations during March and April. +Perhaps as many as twenty were accused.<a name="FNanchor_187-2_71" id="FNanchor_187-2_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_187-2_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> At least +half that number were examined. Several were executed—we +do not know the exact number—almost certainly +at the instance of the justices of the peace.<a name="FNanchor_187-3_72" id="FNanchor_187-3_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_187-3_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> It is +pleasant to know that one was acquitted, even if it was +after she had been twice searched and once put through +the swimming ordeal.<a name="FNanchor_187-4_73" id="FNanchor_187-4_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_187-4_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> + +<p>From Huntingdonshire it is likely that Hopkins and +Stearne made their next excursion into Bedfordshire. +We know very little about their success here. In two +villages it would seem that they were able to track their +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>prey.<a name="FNanchor_188-1_74" id="FNanchor_188-1_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-1_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> But they left to others the search which they +had begun.<a name="FNanchor_188-2_75" id="FNanchor_188-2_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-2_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<p>The witchfinder had been active for a little over a +year. But during the last months of that time his discoveries +had not been so notable. Was there a falling +off in interest? Or was he meeting with increased opposition +among the people? Or did the assize courts, +which resumed their proceedings in the summer of 1646, +frown upon him? It is hard to answer the question +without more evidence. But at any rate it is clear that +during the summer and autumn of 1646 he was not +actively engaged in his profession. It is quite possible, +indeed, that he was already suffering from the consumption +which was to carry him off in the following +year. And, with the retirement of its moving spirit, +the witch crusade soon came to a close. Almost a +twelvemonth later there was a single<a name="FNanchor_188-3_76" id="FNanchor_188-3_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_188-3_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> discovery of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>witches. It was in the island of Ely; and the church +courts,<a name="FNanchor_189-1_77" id="FNanchor_189-1_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-1_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> the justices of the peace,<a name="FNanchor_189-2_78" id="FNanchor_189-2_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-2_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> and the assize +courts,<a name="FNanchor_189-3_79" id="FNanchor_189-3_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-3_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> which had now been revived, were able, between +them, to hang a few witches.<a name="FNanchor_189-4_80" id="FNanchor_189-4_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-4_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>We do not know whether Hopkins participated in the +Ely affair or not. It seems certain that his co-worker, +Stearne, had some share in it. But, if so, it was his +last discovery. The work of the two men was ended. +They had been pursuing the pack of witches in the +eastern counties since March of 1644/5. Even the execrations +of those who opposed them could not mar the +pleasure they felt in what they had done. Nay, when +they were called upon to defend themselves, they could +hardly refrain from exulting in their achievements. +They had indeed every right to exult. When we come +to make up the roll of their victims, we shall see that +their record as witch discoverers surpassed the combined +records of all others.</p> + +<p>It is a mistake to suppose that they had acted in any +haphazard way. The conduct of both men had been +based upon perfectly logical deductions from certain +premises. King James's <i>Dæmonologie</i> had been their +catechism, the statute against the feeding of imps their +book of rules. Both men started with one fundamental +notion, that witchcraft is the keeping of imps. But +this was a thing that could be detected by marks on the +bodies.<a name="FNanchor_189-5_81" id="FNanchor_189-5_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_189-5_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> Both were willing to admit that mistakes could +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>be made and were often made in assuming that natural +bodily marks were the Devil's marks. There were, +however, special indications by which the difference +between the two could be recognized.<a name="FNanchor_190-1_82" id="FNanchor_190-1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-1_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> And the two +witchfinders, of course, possessed that "insight"<a name="FNanchor_190-2_83" id="FNanchor_190-2_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-2_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> +which was necessary to make the distinction. The theories +upon which they worked we need not enter into. +Suffice it to say that when once they had proved, as they +thought, the keeping of imps, the next step was to +watch those accused of it.<a name="FNanchor_190-3_84" id="FNanchor_190-3_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-3_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> "For the watching," says +Stearne,<a name="FNanchor_190-4_85" id="FNanchor_190-4_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-4_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> "it is not to use violence or extremity to +force them to confesse, but onely the keeping is, first +to see whether any of their spirits, or familiars come to +or neere them." It is clear that both Hopkins and +Stearne recognized the fact that confessions wrung +from women by torture are worthless and were by +this explanation defending themselves against the +charge of having used actual torture. There seems to +be no adequate reason for doubting the sincerity of +their explanation. Stearne tells us that the keeping +the witches separate is "also to the end that Godly +Divines might discourse with them." "For if any of +their society come to them to discourse with them, they +will never confesse."<a name="FNanchor_190-5_86" id="FNanchor_190-5_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_190-5_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Here, indeed, is a clue to many +confessions. Several men arrayed against one solitary +and weak woman could break her resolution and get +from her very much what they pleased.</p> + +<p>As for starving the witches and keeping them from +sleep, Stearne maintained that these things were done +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>by them only at first. Hopkins bore the same testimony. +"After they had beat their heads together in the Gaole, +and after this use was not allowed of by the Judges and +other Magistrates, it was never since used, which is a +yeare and a halfe since."<a name="FNanchor_191-1_87" id="FNanchor_191-1_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_191-1_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> In other words, the two men +had given up the practice because the parliamentary +commission had compelled them to do so.</p> + +<p>The confessions must be received with great caution, +Hopkins himself declared.<a name="FNanchor_191-2_88" id="FNanchor_191-2_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_191-2_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> It is so easy to put words +into the witch's mouth. "You have foure Imps, have +you not? She answers affirmatively. 'Yes'.... 'Are +not their names so and so'? 'Yes,' saith she. 'Did +you not send such an Impe to kill my child'? 'Yes,' +saith she." This sort of thing has been too often done, +asserted the virtuous witchfinder. He earnestly did +desire that "all Magistrates and Jurors would, a little +more than ever they did, examine witnesses about the +interrogated confessions." What a cautious, circumspect +man was this famous witchfinder! The confessions, +he wrote, in which confidence may be placed +are when the woman, without any "hard usages or +questions put to her, doth of her owne accord declare +what was the occasion of the Devil's appearing to her."<a name="FNanchor_191-3_89" id="FNanchor_191-3_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_191-3_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p> + +<p>The swimming test had been employed by both men +in the earlier stages of their work. "That hath been +used," wrote Stearne, "and I durst not goe about to +cleere my selfe of it, because formerly I used it, but it +was at such time of the yeare as when none tooke any +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>harme by it, neither did I ever doe it but upon their +owne request."<a name="FNanchor_192-1_90" id="FNanchor_192-1_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_192-1_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> A thoughtful man was this Stearne! +Latterly he had given up the test—since "Judge Corbolt" +stopped it<a name="FNanchor_192-2_91" id="FNanchor_192-2_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_192-2_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>—and he had come to believe that it +was a way of "distrusting of God's providence."</p> + +<p>It can be seen that the men who had conducted the +witch crusade were able to present a consistent philosophy +of their conduct. It was, of course, a philosophy +constructed to meet an attack the force of which they +had to recognize. Hopkins's pamphlet and Stearne's +<i>Confirmation</i> were avowedly written to put their +authors right in the eyes of a public which had turned +against them.<a name="FNanchor_192-3_92" id="FNanchor_192-3_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_192-3_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> It seems that this opposition had first +shown itself at their home in Essex. A woman who +was undergoing inquisition had found supporters, and, +though she was condemned in spite of their efforts, was +at length reprieved.<a name="FNanchor_192-4_93" id="FNanchor_192-4_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_192-4_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> Her friends turned the tables by +indicting Stearne and some forty others of conspiracy, +and apparently succeeded in driving them from the +county.<a name="FNanchor_192-5_94" id="FNanchor_192-5_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_192-5_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> In Bury the forces of the opposition had +appealed to Parliament, and the Commission of Oyer +and Terminer, which, it will be noticed, is never +mentioned by the witchfinders, was sent out to limit +their activities. In Huntingdonshire, we have seen how +Hopkins roused a protesting clergyman, John Gaule. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>If we may judge from the letter he wrote to one of +Gaule's parishioners, Hopkins had by this time met +with enough opposition to know when it was best to +keep out of the way. His boldness was assumed to +cover his fear.</p> + +<p>But it was in Norfolk that the opposition to the +witchfinders reached culmination. There most pungent +"queries" were put to Hopkins through the judges of +assize. He was charged with all those cruelties, which, +as we have seen, he attempts to defend. He was further +accused of fleecing the country for his own +profit.<a name="FNanchor_193-1_95" id="FNanchor_193-1_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_193-1_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> Hopkins's answer was that he took the great +sum of twenty shillings a town "to maintaine his companie +with 3 horses."<a name="FNanchor_193-2_96" id="FNanchor_193-2_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_193-2_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> That this was untrue is sufficiently +proved by the records of Stowmarket where he +received twenty-three pounds and his traveling expenses. +At such a rate for the discoveries, we can +hardly doubt that the two men between them cleared +from three hundred to a thousand pounds, not an +untidy sum in that day, when a day's work brought +six pence.</p> + +<p>What further action was taken in the matter of the +queries "delivered to the Judges of assize" we do not +know. Both Hopkins and Stearne, as we have seen, +went into retirement and set to work to exonerate themselves. +Within the year Hopkins died at his old home +in Manningtree. Stearne says that he died "peaceably, +after a long sicknesse of a Consumption." But +tradition soon had it otherwise. Hutchinson says +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>that the story, in his time, was that Hopkins was finally +put to the swimming test himself, and drowned. According +to another tale, which seems to have lingered +in Suffolk, he offered to show the Devil's roll of all the +witches in England and so was detected.<a name="FNanchor_194-1_97" id="FNanchor_194-1_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_194-1_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> Butler, in his +<i>Hudibras</i>, said of him:</p> + +<div class="block"><div class="poem"> +"Who after proved himself a witch,<br /> +And made a rod for his own breech."<br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Butler's lines appeared only fifteen years after Hopkin's +death, and his statement is evidence enough that +such a tradition was already current. The tradition is +significant. It probably means, not that Hopkins really +paid such a penalty for his career—Stearne's word is +good enough proof to the contrary—but that within his +own generation his name had become an object of detestation.</p> + +<p>John Stearne did not return to Manningtree—he may +have been afraid to—but settled down near Bury, the +scene of his greatest successes.</p> + +<p>If the epitaphs of these two men were to be written, +their deeds could be compressed into homely statistics. +And this leads us to inquire what was the sum of their +achievement. It has been variously estimated. It is +not an uncommon statement that thirty thousand +witches were hanged in England during the rule of +Parliament, and this wild guess has been copied by +reputable authors. In other works the number has been +estimated at three thousand, but this too is careless +guesswork. Stearne himself boasted that he knew of +two hundred executions, and Stearne ought to have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>known. It is indeed possible that his estimate was too +high. He had a careless habit of confusing condemnations +with executions that makes us suspect that in +this estimate he may have been thinking rather of the +number of convictions than of the hangings. Yet his +figures are those of a man who was on the ground, and +cannot be lightly discounted. Moreover, James Howell, +writing in 1648, says that "within the compass +of two years, near upon three hundred Witches were +arraign'd and the major part executed in Essex and +Suffolk only."<a name="FNanchor_195-1_98" id="FNanchor_195-1_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_195-1_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> If these estimates be correct—or even +if they approach correctness—a remarkable fact appears. +Hopkins and Stearne, in fourteen months' time, +sent to the gallows more witches than all the other witch-hunters +of England can be proved—so far as our present +records go—to have hung in the hundred and sixty +years during which the persecution nourished in England. +It must occur to the reader that this crusade was +extraordinary. Certainly it calls for explanation.</p> + +<p>So far as the writer is aware, but one explanation +has been offered. It has been repeated until it has +become a commonplace in the history of witchcraft +that the Hopkins crusade was one of the expressions +of the intolerant zeal of the Presbyterian party during +its control of Parliament. This notion is largely due to +Francis Hutchinson, who wrote the first history of Eng<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>lish +witchcraft. Hutchinson was an Anglican clergyman, +but we need not charge him with partisanship in +accusing the Presbyterians. There was no inconsiderable +body of evidence to support his point of view. The +idea was developed by Sir Walter Scott in his <i>Letters +on Demonology</i>, but it was left to Lecky, in his classic +essay on witchcraft, to put the case against the Presbyterian +Parliament in its most telling form.<a name="FNanchor_196-1_99" id="FNanchor_196-1_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_196-1_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> His interpretation +of the facts has found general acceptance +since.</p> + +<p>It is not hard to understand how this explanation +grew up. At a time when Hutchinson was making his +study, Richard Baxter, the most eminent Puritan of his +time, was still a great name among the defenders of +witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_196-2_100" id="FNanchor_196-2_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_196-2_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> In his pages Hutchinson read how Puritan +divines accompanied the witch-magistrates on their +rounds and how a "reading parson" was one of their +victims. Gaule, who opposed them, he seems to have +counted an Anglican. He clearly put some faith in the +lines of <i>Hudibras</i>. Probably, however, none of these +points weighed so much with him as the general fact +of coincidence in time between the great witch persecution +and Presbyterian rule. It was hard to escape +the conclusion that these two unusual situations must +in some way have been connected.</p> + +<p>Neither Hutchinson nor those who followed have +called attention to a point in support of their case +which is quite as good proof of their contention as anything +adduced. It was in the eastern counties, where +the Eastern Association had flourished and where +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>Parliament, as well as the army, found its strongest +backing—the counties that stood consistently against +the king—in those counties it was that Hopkins and +Stearne carried on their work.<a name="FNanchor_197-1_101" id="FNanchor_197-1_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_197-1_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> + +<p>It may seem needless in the light of these facts to +suggest any other explanation of the witch crusade. Yet +the whole truth has not by any means been told. It +has already been noticed that Hutchinson made some +mistakes. Parson Lowes, who was hanged as a witch +at the instance of his dissatisfied parishioners, was not +hanged because he was an Anglican.<a name="FNanchor_197-2_102" id="FNanchor_197-2_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_197-2_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> And the Presbyterian +Parliament had not sent down into Suffolk a +commission to hang witches, but to check the indiscriminate +proceedings that were going on there against +witches. Moreover, while it is true that East Anglia +and the counties adjacent, the stronghold of the Puritans, +were the scene of Hopkins's operations, it is quite +as true that in those counties arose that powerful opposition +which forced the witchfinders into retirement. +We have noticed in another connection that the "malignants" +were inclined to mock at the number of +witches in the counties friendly to Parliament, but there +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>is nothing to show that the mockers disbelieved the +reality of the witchcrafts.<a name="FNanchor_198-1_103" id="FNanchor_198-1_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_198-1_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p> + +<p>It is easy enough to turn some of Hutchinson's +reasoning against him, as well as to weaken the force +of other arguments that may be presented on his side. +But, when we have done all this, we still have to face +the unpleasant facts that the witch persecution coincided +in time with Presbyterian rule and in place with +Puritan communities. It is very hard to get around +these facts. Nor does the writer believe that they can be +altogether avoided, even if their edge can be somewhat +blunted. It was a time of bitter struggle. The outcome +could not yet be forecast. Party feeling was at a high +pitch. The situation may not unfairly be compared +with that in the summer of 1863 during the American +civil war. Then the outbreaks in New York revealed +the public tension. The case in 1645 in the eastern +counties was similar. Every energy was directed towards +the prosecution of the war. The strain might +very well have shown itself in other forms than in +hunting down the supposed agents of the Devil. As +a matter of fact, the apparitions and devils, the knockings +and strange noises, that filled up the pages of the +popular literature were the indications of an overwrought +public mind. Religious belief grew terribly +literal under the tension of the war. The Anglicans +were fighting for their king, the Puritans for their re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>ligion. +That religious fervor which very easily deepens +into dementia was highly accentuated.<a name="FNanchor_199-1_104" id="FNanchor_199-1_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_199-1_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, too much importance may have been +given to the part played by Presbyterianism. There is +no evidence which makes it certain that the morbidity +of the public would have taken the form of witch-hanging, +had it not been for the leadership of Hopkins and +Stearne. The Manningtree affair started very much +as a score of others in other times. It had just this +difference, that two pushing men took the matter up +and made of it an opportunity. The reader who has +followed the career of these men has seen how they seem +the backbone of the entire movement. It is true that the +town of Yarmouth invited them of its own initiative +to take up the work there, but not until they had already +made themselves famous in all East Anglia. There is, +indeed, too much evidence that their visits were in +nearly every case the result of their own deliberate purpose +to widen the field of their labors. In brief, two +aggressive men had taken advantage of a time of popular +excitement and alarm. They were fortunate in +the state of the public mind, but they seem to have owed +more to their own exertions.</p> + +<p>But perhaps to neither factor was their success +due so much as to the want of government in England +at this time. We have seen in an earlier chapter that +Charles I and his privy council had put an end to a +witch panic that bade fair to end very tragically. Not +that they interfered with random executions here and +there. It was when the numbers involved became too +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>large that the government stepped in to revise verdicts. +This was what the government of Parliament failed to +do. And the reasons are not far to seek. Parliament +was intensely occupied with the war. The writer believes +that it can be proved that, except in so far as +concerned the war, the government of Parliament and +the Committee of Both Kingdoms paid little or no attention +to the affairs of the realm. It is certainly true +that they allowed judicial business to go by the board. +The assizes seem to have been almost, if not entirely, +suspended during the last half of the year 1645 and the +first half of 1646.<a name="FNanchor_200-1_105" id="FNanchor_200-1_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_200-1_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> The justices of the peace, who had +always shown themselves ready to hunt down witches, +were suffered to go their own gait.<a name="FNanchor_200-2_106" id="FNanchor_200-2_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_200-2_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> To be sure, there +were exceptions. The Earl of Warwick held a court +at Chelmsford, but he was probably acting in a military +capacity, and, inexperienced in court procedure, doubtless +depended largely upon the justices of the peace, +who, gathered in quarter sessions, were assisting him. +It is true too that Parliament had sent down a Commission +of Oyer and Terminer to Bury, a commission +made up of a serjeant and two clergymen. But these +two cases are, so far as we can discover, the sole instances +during these two years when the justices of the +peace were not left to their own devices. This is sig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>nificant. +Except in Middlesex and in the chartered +towns of England, we have, excepting during this time +of war, no records that witches were ever sentenced to +death, save by the judges of assize.</p> + +<p>To put it in a nutshell, England was in a state of judicial +anarchy.<a name="FNanchor_201-1_107" id="FNanchor_201-1_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_201-1_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> Local authorities were in control. But +local authorities had too often been against witches. The +coming of Hopkins and Stearne gave them their chance, +and there was no one to say stop.</p> + +<p>This explanation fits in well with the fact, to which +we shall advert in another chapter, that no small proportion +of English witch trials took place in towns possessing +separate rights of jurisdiction. This was especially +true in the seventeenth century. The cases in +Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berwick, +and Canterbury, are all instances in point. Indeed, +the solitary prosecution in Hopkins's own time in +which he had no hand was in one of those towns, Faversham +in Kent. There the mayor and "local jurators" +sent not less than three to the gallows.<a name="FNanchor_201-2_108" id="FNanchor_201-2_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_201-2_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p><p>One other aspect of the Hopkins crusade deserves +further attention. It has been shown in the course of +the chapter that the practice of torture was in evidence +again and again during this period. The methods were +peculiarly harrowing. At the same time they were +methods which the rationale of the witch belief justified. +The theory need hardly be repeated. It was believed +that the witches, bound by a pact with the Devil, +made use of spirits that took animal forms. These +imps, as they were called, were accustomed to visit +their mistress once in twenty-four hours. If the witch, +said her persecutors, could be put naked upon a chair +in the middle of the room and kept awake, the imps +could not approach her. Herein lay the supposed reasonableness +of the methods in vogue. And the authorities +who were offering this excuse for their use of torture +were not loth to go further. It was, they said, +necessary to walk the creatures in order to keep them +awake. It was soon discovered that the enforced +sleeplessness and the walking would after two or three +days and nights produce confessions. Stearne himself +describes the matter graphically: "For the watching," +he writes, "it is not to use violence or extremity to +force them to confesse, but onely the keeping is, first, +to see whether any of their spirits or familiars come to +or neere them; for I have found that if the time be +come, the spirit or Impe so called should come, it will +be either visible or invisible, if visible, then it may be +discerned by those in the Roome, if invisible, then by the +party. Secondly, it is for this end also, that if the +parties which watch them, be so carefull that none come +visible nor invisible but that may be discerned, if they +follow their directions then the party presently after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +time their Familiars should have come, if they faile, +will presently confesse, for then they thinke they will +either come no more or have forsaken them. Thirdly +it is also to the end, that Godly Divines and others might +discourse with them, for if any of their society come +to them to discourse with them, they will never confesse.... But +if honest godly people discourse with +them, laying the hainousnesse of their sins to them, and +in what condition they are in without Repentance, and +telling them the subtilties of the Devil, and the mercies +of God, these ways will bring them to Confession without +extremity, it will make them break into confession +hoping for mercy."<a name="FNanchor_203-1_109" id="FNanchor_203-1_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_203-1_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<p>Hopkins tells us more about the walking of the +witches. In answer to the objection that the accused +were "extraordinarily walked till their feet were blistered, +and so forced through that cruelty to confesse," +"he answered that the purpose was only to keepe +them waking: and the reason was this, when they did +lye or sit in a chaire, if they did offer to couch downe, +then the watchers were only to desire them to sit up and +walke about."</p> + +<p>Now, the inference might be drawn from these descriptions +that the use of torture was a new feature +of the witchcraft persecutions characteristic of the +Civil War period. There is little evidence that before +that time such methods were in use. A schoolmaster +who was supposed to have used magic against James I +had been put to the rack. There were other cases in +which it is conjectured that the method may have been +tried. There is, however, little if any proof of such +trial.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p><p>Such an inference would, however, be altogether unjustified. +The absence of evidence of the use of torture +by no means establishes the absence of the practice. +It may rather be said that the evidence of the +practice we possess in the Hopkins cases is of such a +sort as to lead us to suspect that it was frequently resorted +to. If for these cases we had only such evidence +as in most previous cases has made up our entire +sum of information, we should know nothing of the terrible +sufferings undergone by the poor creatures of +Chelmsford and Bury. The confessions are given in +full, as in the accounts of other trials, but no word is +said of the causes that led to them. The difference between +these cases of 1645 and other cases is this, that +Hopkins and Stearne accused so large a body of witches +that they stirred up opposition. It is through those who +opposed them and their own replies that we learn about +the tortures inflicted upon the supposed agents of the +Devil.</p> + +<p>The significance of this cannot be insisted upon too +strongly. A chance has preserved for us the fact of the +tortures of this time. It is altogether possible—it is +almost probable—that, if we had all the facts, we should +find that similar or equally severe methods had been +practised in many other witch cases.</p> + +<p>We have been very minute in our descriptions of the +Hopkins crusade, and by no means brief in our attempt +to account for it. But it is safe to say that it is easily +the most important episode in that series of episodes +which makes up the history of English witchcraft. +None of them belong, of course, in the larger progress +of historical events. It may seem to some that we have +magnified the point at which they touched the wider<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +interests of the time. Let it not be forgotten that Hopkins +was a factor in his day and that, however little he +may have affected the larger issues of the times, he was +affected by them. It was only the unusual conditions +produced by the Civil Wars that made the great witchfinder +possible.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164-1_1" id="Footnote_164-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See J. O. Jones, "Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder," in Thomas Seccombe's +<i>Twelve Bad Men</i> (London, 1894).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164-2_2" id="Footnote_164-2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164-2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 1854, II, 285, where a quotation from a +parish register of Mistley-cum-Manningtree is given: "Matthew Hopkins, +son of Mr. James Hopkins, Minister of Wenham, was buried at Mistley +August 12, 1647." See also John Stearne, <i>A Confirmation and Discovery +of Witchcraft</i>, 61 (cited hereafter as "Stearne").</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164-3_3" id="Footnote_164-3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164-3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Advance of Money, +1642-1656</i>, I, 457. <i>Cf. Notes and Queries</i>, 1850, II, 413.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165-1_4" id="Footnote_165-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165-1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The oft-repeated statement that he had been given a commission by +Parliament to detect witches seems to rest only on the mocking words +of Butler's <i>Hudibras</i>: +</p> + +<div class="block"><div class="poem"> +"Hath not this present Parliament<br /> +A Ledger to the Devil sent,<br /> +Fully empower'd to treat about<br /> +Finding revolted Witches out?"<br /> +</div></div> +<div class="center" style="margin-left: 8em;">(<i>Hudibras</i>, pt. ii, canto 3.)</div> +<p> +To these lines an early editor added the note: "The Witch-finder in +Suffolk, who in the Presbyterian Times had a Commission to discover +Witches." But he names no authority, and none can be found. It is +probably a confusion with the Commission appointed for the trial of the +witches in Suffolk (see below, p. 178). Even his use of the title "witch-finder-general" +is very doubtful. "Witch-finder" he calls himself in +his book; only the frontispiece has "Witch Finder Generall." Nor is +this title given him by Stearne, Gaule, or any contemporary record. It +is perhaps only a misunderstanding of the phrase of Hopkins's title-page, +"for the benefit of the whole kingdome"—a phrase which, as +the punctuation shows, describes, not the witch-finder, but his book. Yet +in <i>County Folk Lore, Suffolk</i> (Folk Lore Soc., 1893), 178, there is +an extract about John Lowes from a Brandeston MS.: "His chief accuser +was one Hopkins, who called himself Witchfinder-General." But +this is of uncertain date, and may rest on Hutchinson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166-1_5" id="Footnote_166-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This is evident enough from his incessant use of Scripture and from +the Calvinistic stamp of his theology; but he leaves us no doubt when +(p. 54) he describes the Puritan Fairclough as "an able Orthodox +Divine."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166-2_6" id="Footnote_166-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Matthew Hopkins, <i>The Discovery of Witches</i> (London, 1647), 2—cited +hereafter as "Hopkins."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167-1_7" id="Footnote_167-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> One of them was Sir Harbottle Grimston, a baronet of Puritan +ancestry, who had been active in the Long Parliament, but who as a +"moderate man" fell now somewhat into the background. The other was +Sir Thomas Bowes. Both figure a little later as Presbyterian elders.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167-2_8" id="Footnote_167-2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167-2_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Hopkins, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168-1_9" id="Footnote_168-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Hopkins, 2; Stearne, 14-16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168-2_10" id="Footnote_168-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> It must, however, be noted that the oaths of the four women are put +together, and that one of the men deposed merely that he confirmed +Stearne's particulars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168-3_11" id="Footnote_168-3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168-3_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Although Hopkins omitted in his testimony the first animal seen +by Stearne. He mentioned it later, calling it Holt. Stearne called it +Lought. See Hopkins, 2; Stearne, 15. But Stearne calls it Hoult in his +testimony as reproduced in the <i>True and exact Relation of the severall +Informations, Examinations and Confessions of the Late Witches ... at +Chelmesford ...</i> (London, 1645), 3-4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169-1_12" id="Footnote_169-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Despite this record Anne West is described by Stearne (p. 39) as +one of the very religious people who make an outward show "as if +they had been Saints on earth."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169-2_13" id="Footnote_169-2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169-2_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The confession of Rebecca West is indeed dated "21" March 1645, +the very day of Elizabeth Clarke's arrest; but all the context suggests +that this is an error. In spite of her confessions, which were of the +most damaging, Rebecca West was eventually acquitted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170-1_14" id="Footnote_170-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It must not for a moment, however, be forgotten that these confessions +had been wrung from tortured creatures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170-2_15" id="Footnote_170-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Richard Carter and Henry Cornwall had testified that Margaret +Moone confessed to them. Probably she did, as she was doubtless at +that time under torture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171-1_16" id="Footnote_171-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The evidence offered against her well suggests on what slender +grounds a witch might be accused. "This Informant saith that the house +where this Informante and the said Mary did dwell together, was haunted +with a Leveret, which did usually sit before the dore: And this Informant +knowing that one Anthony Shalock had an excellent Greyhound that had +killed many Hares; and having heard that a childe of the said Anthony was +much haunted and troubled, and that the mother of the childe suspected +the said Mary to be the cause of it: This Informant went to the said +Anthony Shalock and acquainted him that a Leveret did usually come +and sit before the dore, where this Informant and the said Mary Greenleife +lived, and desired the said Anthony to bring downe his Greyhound +to see if he could kill the said Leveret; and the next day the said Anthony +did accordingly bring his Greyhound, and coursed it, but whether +the dog killed it this Informant knows not: But being a little before +coursed by Good-man Merrils dog, the dog ran at it, 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."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172-1_17" id="Footnote_172-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See Bulstrode Whitelocke, <i>Memorials of English Affairs ...</i> (London, +1682; Oxford, 1853), ed. of 1853, I, 501.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172-2_18" id="Footnote_172-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> "H. F."'s publication is the <i>True and exact Relation</i> cited above +(note 11). He seems to have written it in the last of May, but inserted +verdicts later in the margin. Arthur Wilson, who was present, says +that 18 were executed; Francis Peck, <i>Desiderata Curiosa</i> (London, 1732-1735; +1779), ed. of 1779, II, 476. But Hopkins writes that 29 were condemned +at once and Stearne says about 28; quite possibly there were +two trials at Chelmsford. There is only one other supposition, <i>i. e.</i>, that +Hopkins and Stearne confused the number originally accused with the +number hanged. For further discussion of the somewhat conflicting +evidence as to the number of these Essex witches and the dates of their +trial see appendix C, under 1645.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174-1_19" id="Footnote_174-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>A Diary or an Exact Journall</i>, July 24-31, 1645, pp. 5-6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174-2_20" id="Footnote_174-2_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-2_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches at St. +Edmundsbury ...</i> (London, 1645), 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174-3_21" id="Footnote_174-3_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-3_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174-4_22" id="Footnote_174-4_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-4_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174-5_23" id="Footnote_174-5_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174-5_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> John Gaule, <i>Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and +Witchcrafts</i> (London, 1646), 78, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175-1_24" id="Footnote_175-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175-1_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Queries 8 and 9 answered by Hopkins to the Norfolk assizes confirm +Gaule's description. See Hopkins, 5. "Query 8. When these ... +are fully discovered, yet that will not serve sufficiently to convict them, +but they must be tortured and kept from sleep two or three nights, to +distract them, and make them say anything; which is a way to tame a +wilde Colt, or Hawke." "Query 9. Beside that unreasonable watching, +they were extraordinarily walked, till their feet were blistered, and so +forced through that cruelty to confess." Hopkins himself admitted the +keeping of Elizabeth Clarke from sleep, but is careful to insert "upon +command from the Justice." Hopkins, 2-3. On p. 5 he again refers to +this point. Stearne, 61, uses the phrase "with consent of the justices."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176-1_25" id="Footnote_176-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Suffolk Institute of Archæology, <i>Proceedings</i>, X, 378. Baxter seems +to have started the notion that Lowes was a "reading parson," or +Anglican.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176-2_26" id="Footnote_176-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176-3_27" id="Footnote_176-3_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-3_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See <i>A Magazine of Scandall, or a heape of wickednesse of two infamous +Ministers</i> (London, 1642), where there is a deposition, dated +August 4, 1641, that Lowes had been twice indicted and once arraigned +for witchcraft, and convicted by law as "a common Barrettor" at the +assizes in Suffolk. Stearne, 23, says he was charged as a "common imbarritor" +over thirty years before.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176-4_28" id="Footnote_176-4_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176-4_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> This account of the torture is given, in a letter to Hutchinson, by a +Mr. Rivet, who had "heard it from them that watched with him." It +is in some measure confirmed by the MS. history of Brandeston quoted +in <i>County Folk Lore, Suffolk</i> (Folk Lore Soc.), 178, which adds the +above-quoted testimony as to his litigiousness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177-1_29" id="Footnote_177-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177-1_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Stearne, 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177-2_30" id="Footnote_177-2_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177-2_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches</i>, 5; <i>Moderate +Intelligencer</i>, September 4-11, 1645.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177-3_31" id="Footnote_177-3_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177-3_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> See Samuel Clarke, <i>Lives of sundry Eminent Persons ...</i> (London, +1683), 172. In writing the life of Samuel Fairclough, Clarke used Fairclough's +papers; see <i>ibid.</i>, 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178-1_32" id="Footnote_178-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Fairclough was a Non-Conformist, but not actively sympathetic with +Presbyterianism. Calamy was counted a Presbyterian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178-2_33" id="Footnote_178-2_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178-2_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Hopkins, 5-6; Stearne, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178-3_34" id="Footnote_178-3_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178-3_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> One of these was Lowes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178-4_35" id="Footnote_178-4_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178-4_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179-1_36" id="Footnote_179-1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-1_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Stearne, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179-2_37" id="Footnote_179-2_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-2_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches</i>, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179-3_38" id="Footnote_179-3_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-3_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>; Stearne, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179-4_39" id="Footnote_179-4_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-4_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Hutchinson speaks of repeated sessions. Stearne, 25, says: "by +reason of an Allarum at Cambridge, the gaol delivery at Burie St. Edmunds +was adjourned for about three weeks." As a matter of fact, the +king's forces seem not to have got farther east than Bedford and Cambridge. +See Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, I, 501.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179-5_40" id="Footnote_179-5_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179-5_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Stearne, 11, speaks of 68 condemnations. On p. 14 he tells of 18 +who were executed at Bury, but this may have referred to the first group +only. A MS. history of Brandeston quoted in <i>County Folk Lore, Suffolk</i> +(Folk Lore Soc.), 178, says that Lowes was executed with 59 more. +It is not altogether certain, however, that this testimony is independent. +Nevertheless, it contains pieces of information not in the other accounts, +and so cannot be ignored.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180-1_41" id="Footnote_180-1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-1_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Moderate Intelligencer</i>, September 4-11, 1645.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180-2_42" id="Footnote_180-2_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-2_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Howell, <i>Familiar Letters</i> (I use the ed. of Joseph Jacobs, London +1890-1892) II, 506, 515, 551. The letters quoted are dated as of Feb., +1646 (1647), and Feb., 1647 (1648 of our calendar); but, as is well known, +Howell's dates cannot be trusted. The first was printed in the volume +of his letters published in 1647, the others in that published in 1650.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180-3_43" id="Footnote_180-3_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-3_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Joseph Hall, <i>Soliloquies</i> (London, 1651), 52-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180-4_44" id="Footnote_180-4_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-4_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Thomas Ady, <i>Candle in the Dark</i> (London, 1656), 101-105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180-5_45" id="Footnote_180-5_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180-5_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The Rev. John Worthington attended the trial. In mentioning it in +his diary, he made no comment. <i>Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John +Worthington</i>, I (Chetham Soc., no. 13, 1847), 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181-1_46" id="Footnote_181-1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-1_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> So, at least, says Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, I, 487.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181-2_47" id="Footnote_181-2_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-2_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> J. G. Nall, <i>Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft</i> (London, 1867), 92, note, +quotes from the Yarmouth assembly book. Nall makes very careless +statements, but his quotations from the assembly book may be +depended upon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181-3_48" id="Footnote_181-3_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-3_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181-4_49" id="Footnote_181-4_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-4_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, IX, pt. i, 320.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181-5_50" id="Footnote_181-5_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181-5_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> The <i>Collection of Modern Relations</i> says that sixteen were hanged, +but this compilation was published forty-seven years after the events: +the number 6 had been changed to 16. One witch seems to have suffered +later, see Stearne, 53. The statement about the 16 witches hanged +at Yarmouth may be found in practically all accounts of English witchcraft, +<i>e. g.</i>, see the recent essay on Hopkins by J. O. Jones, in Seccombe's +<i>Twelve Bad Men</i>, 60. They can all be traced back through various +lines to this source.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-1_51" id="Footnote_182-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-1_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> H. Manship, <i>History of Great Yarmouth</i>, continued by C. J. Palmer +(Great Yarmouth, 1854-1856), where the Yarmouth records about Hopkins +are given in full. See also H. Harrod, in <i>Norfolk Archæology</i> +(Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc., 1847-1864), IV, 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-2_52" id="Footnote_182-2_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-2_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>The Lawes against Witches and Conjuration ...</i> (London, 1645), +4. J. O. Jones, in his account of Hopkins, <i>loc. cit.</i>, says that "many +were hanged or burned in Ipswich." I believe that no authority +can be cited for this statement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-3_53" id="Footnote_182-3_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-3_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> The first is in, <i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene +Witches</i>, 5. We of course do not know that the sentence was carried +out.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-4_54" id="Footnote_182-4_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-4_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> The master of a ship had been "sutor" for her grandchild; <i>The +Lawes against Witches</i>, 8. She was a "professour of Religion, a constant +hearer of the Word for these many years."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-5_55" id="Footnote_182-5_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-5_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182-6_56" id="Footnote_182-6_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182-6_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>I. e., The Lawes against Witches</i> (London, 1645). See below, appendix +A, § 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183-1_57" id="Footnote_183-1_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-1_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> N. F. Hele, <i>Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh</i> (Ipswich, 1890), 43-44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183-2_58" id="Footnote_183-2_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-2_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> This was doubtless the fee to the executioner. Mr. Richard Browne +and Mr. Newgate, who were either the justices of the peace or the +local magistrates, received £4 apiece for their services in trying the +witches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183-3_59" id="Footnote_183-3_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-3_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> A. G. Hollingsworth, <i>History of Stowmarket</i> (Ipswich, 1844), 170.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183-4_60" id="Footnote_183-4_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183-4_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> For a list of these towns, see below, appendix C, under 1645, Suffolk.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184-1_61" id="Footnote_184-1_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-1_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Stearne, 45, two instances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184-2_62" id="Footnote_184-2_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-2_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 37, 39, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184-3_63" id="Footnote_184-3_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-3_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Thomas Ady, <i>A Candle in the Dark</i>, 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184-4_64" id="Footnote_184-4_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184-4_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Stearne, 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185-1_65" id="Footnote_185-1_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-1_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> His whole confession reads like the utterance of a tortured man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185-2_66" id="Footnote_185-2_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-2_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> He had previously been found with a rope around his neck. This +was of course attributed to witchcraft. Stearne, 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185-3_67" id="Footnote_185-3_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-3_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185-4_68" id="Footnote_185-4_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185-4_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> John Wynnick and Joane Wallis made effective confessions. The +first, when in the heat of passion at the loss of a purse, had signed +his soul away (Stearne, 20-21; see also the pamphlet, the dedication of +which is signed by John Davenport, entitled, <i>The Witches of Huntingdon, +their Examinations and Confessions ...</i> London, 1646, 3). +The latter maintained a troop of imps, among whom Blackeman, Grissell, +and Greedigut figured most prominently. The half-witted creature +could not recall the names on the repetition of her confessions, +but this failing does not seem to have awakened any doubt of her +guilt. Stearne could not avoid noticing that some of those who suffered +were very religious. One woman, who had kept an imp for twenty-one +years, "did resort to church and had a desire to be rid of her +unhappy burden."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186-1_69" id="Footnote_186-1_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186-1_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, witches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187-1_70" id="Footnote_187-1_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187-1_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> This letter is printed by Gaule at the opening of his <i>Select Cases +of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187-2_71" id="Footnote_187-2_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187-2_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Stearne, 11; <i>cf.</i> below, appendix C, 1646 (pp. 405-406).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187-3_72" id="Footnote_187-3_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187-3_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> That it was done by the justices of the peace is a probable conclusion +from Stearne's language. See his account of Joane Wallis, +p. 13, also his account of John Wynnick, pp. 20-21. That the examinations +were in March and April (see John Davenport's account, <i>The +Witches of Huntingdon</i>) and the executions in May is a fact confirmatory +of this; see Stearne, 11. But it is more to the point that John +Davenport dedicates his pamphlet to the justices of the peace for the +county of Huntingdon, and says: "You were present, and Judges at +the Tryall and Conviction of them."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187-4_73" id="Footnote_187-4_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187-4_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> The swimming ordeal was perhaps unofficial; see Stearne, 19. +Another case was that of Elizabeth Chandler, who was "duckt"; +<i>Witches of Huntingdon</i>, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188-1_74" id="Footnote_188-1_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-1_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Tilbrooke-bushes, Stearne, 11; Risden, <i>ibid.</i>, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188-2_75" id="Footnote_188-2_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-2_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> This may be inferred from Stearne's words: "but afterward I +heard that she made a very large confession," <i>ibid.</i>, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188-3_76" id="Footnote_188-3_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188-3_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Thomas Wright, John Ashton, J. O. Jones, and the other writers +who have dealt with Hopkins, speak of the Worcester trials, in +1647, in which four women are said to have been hanged. Their +statements are all based upon a pamphlet, <i>The Full Tryals, Examination, +and Condemnation of Four Notorious Witches at the Assizes +held at Worcester on Tuseday the 4th of March.... Printed for I. +W.</i> What seems to have been the first edition of this brochure bears +no date. In 1700 another edition was printed for "J. M." in Fleet +Street. Some writer on witchcraft gained the notion that this pamphlet +belonged in the year 1647 and dealt with events in that year. +Wright, John Ashton, and W. H. Davenport Adams (<i>Witch, Warlock, +and Magician</i>, London, 1889), all accept this date. An examination +of the pamphlet shows that it was cleverly put together from the <i>True +and Exact Relation</i> of 1645. The four accused bear the names of four +of those accused at Chelmsford, and make, with a few differences, the +same confessions. See below, appendix A, § 4, for a further discussion +of this pamphlet. It is strange that so careful a student as Thomas +Wright should have been deceived by this pamphlet, especially since +he noticed that the confessions were "imitations" of those in Essex.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189-1_77" id="Footnote_189-1_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-1_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> A. Gibbons, ed., <i>Ely Episcopal Records</i> (Lincoln, 1891), 112-113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189-2_78" id="Footnote_189-2_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-2_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Stearne, 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189-3_79" id="Footnote_189-3_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-3_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> That there were assizes is proved by the statement that "Moore's +wife" confessed before the "Judge, Bench, and Country," <i>ibid.</i>, +21-22, as well as by the reference in the <i>Ely Episcopal Records</i>, 113, +to the "assizes."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189-4_80" id="Footnote_189-4_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-4_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Stearne, 17, 21-22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189-5_81" id="Footnote_189-5_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189-5_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> For a clear statement of this point of view, see <i>ibid.</i>, 40-50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190-1_82" id="Footnote_190-1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-1_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Stearne, 46-47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190-2_83" id="Footnote_190-2_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-2_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190-3_84" id="Footnote_190-3_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-3_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190-4_85" id="Footnote_190-4_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-4_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190-5_86" id="Footnote_190-5_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190-5_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191-1_87" id="Footnote_191-1_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191-1_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Hopkins, 5. But Hopkins was not telling the exact truth here. +When he was at Aldeburgh in September (8th) the accused were watched +day and night. See chamberlain's accounts, in N. F. Hele, <i>Notes or +Jottings about Aldeburgh</i>, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191-2_88" id="Footnote_191-2_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191-2_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Hopkins, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191-3_89" id="Footnote_191-3_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191-3_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Hopkins, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192-1_90" id="Footnote_192-1_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192-1_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Stearne, 18. Hopkins did not attempt to deny the use of the +ordeal. He supported himself by quoting James; see Hopkins, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192-2_91" id="Footnote_192-2_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192-2_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Stearne, 18. He means, of course, Serjeant Godbolt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192-3_92" id="Footnote_192-3_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192-3_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> See Stearne, in his preface to the reader, also p. 61; and see also +the complete title of Hopkins's book as given in appendix A (p. 362).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192-4_93" id="Footnote_192-4_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192-4_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> A similar case was that of Anne Binkes, to whom Stearne refers on +p. 54. He says she confessed to him her guilt. "Was this woman +fitting to live?... I am sure she was living not long since, and acquitted +upon her trial."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192-5_94" id="Footnote_192-5_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192-5_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Not until after Stearne was already busy elsewhere. Stearne, 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193-1_95" id="Footnote_193-1_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193-1_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> It would seem, too, that Stearne was sued for recovery of sums +paid him. "Many rather fall upon me for what hath been received; +but I hope such suits will be disannulled." Stearne, 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193-2_96" id="Footnote_193-2_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193-2_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Hopkins, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194-1_97" id="Footnote_194-1_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194-1_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>County Folk Lore, Suffolk</i> (Folk Lore Soc.) 176, quoting from J. T. +Varden in the <i>East Anglian Handbook</i> for 1885, p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195-1_98" id="Footnote_195-1_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195-1_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> James Howell, <i>Familiar Letters</i>, II, 551. Howell, of course, may +easily have counted convictions as executions. Moreover, it was a +time when rumors were flying about, and Howell would not have taken +the pains to sift them. Yet his agreement with Stearne in numbers is +remarkable. Somewhat earlier, (the letter is dated February 3, 1646/7) +Howell had written that "in Essex and Suffolk there were above two +hundred indicted within these two years and above the one half executed" +(<i>ibid.</i>, 506). But, as noted above, his dates are not to be trusted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196-1_99" id="Footnote_196-1_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196-1_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> See his <i>History of Rationalism</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196-2_100" id="Footnote_196-2_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196-2_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> A name no greater, however, than that of Glanvill, who was a +prominent Anglican.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197-1_101" id="Footnote_197-1_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197-1_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> It does not belong in this connection, but it should be stated, +that one of the strongest reasons for supposing the Presbyterian party +largely responsible for the persecution of witches lies in the large number +of witches in Scotland throughout the whole period of that party's +ascendancy. This is an argument that can hardly be successfully answered. +Yet it is a legitimate question whether the witch-hunting +proclivities of the north were not as much the outcome of Scottish laws +and manners as of Scottish religion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197-2_102" id="Footnote_197-2_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197-2_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> The <i>Magazine of Scandall</i>, speaking of Lowes and another man, +says: "Their Religion is either none, or else as the wind blows: If +the ceremonies be tending to Popery, none so forward as they, and if +there be orders cleane contrary they shall exceed any Round-head in the +Ile of great Brittain." See also above, pp. 175-177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198-1_103" id="Footnote_198-1_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198-1_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Yet it must not be overlooked that Stearne himself, who must +have known well the religious sympathies of his opponents, asks, p. 58, +"And who are they that have been against the prosecution ... but +onely such as (without offence I may speak it) be enemies to the +Church of God?" He dares not mention names, "not onely for fear of +offence, but also for suits of Law."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199-1_104" id="Footnote_199-1_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199-1_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Scott has pictured this very well in <i>Woodstock</i>. For a good example +of it see <i>The [D]Ivell in Kent, or His strange Delusions at +Sandwitch</i> (London, 1647).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200-1_105" id="Footnote_200-1_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200-1_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> See below, note 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200-2_106" id="Footnote_200-2_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200-2_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> The witches of Aldeburgh were tried at the "sessions," N. F. +Hele, <i>op. cit.</i>, 43-44. Mother Lakeland was probably condemned by the +justices of the peace; see <i>The Lawes against Witches</i>. The witches +of Huntingdon were tried by the justices of the peace; see above, note +73. As for the trials in Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and +Cambridgeshire, it is fairly safe to reason that they were conducted by +the justices of the peace from other evidence which we have that there +were no assizes during the last half of 1645 and the first five months of +1646; see Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, II, 31, 44, 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201-1_107" id="Footnote_201-1_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201-1_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> For a few of the evidences of this situation during these years see +James Thompson, <i>Leicester</i> (Leicester, 1849), 401; <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. +Reports, Various</i>, I, 109-110, 322; XIII, 4, p. 216 (note gaps in the +records); Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, I, 436; II, 31, 44, 64, 196; III, 152. +Innumerable other references could be added to prove this point. F. A. +Inderwick in his <i>Interregnum</i> (London, 1891), 153, goes so far as to +say that "from the autumn of 1642 to the autumn of 1646 no judges +went the circuits." This seems rather a sweeping statement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201-2_108" id="Footnote_201-2_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201-2_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> See <i>The Examination, Confession</i>, etc. (London, 1645). Joan +Williford, Joan Cariden, and Jane Hott were tried. The first two quickly +confessed to the keeping of imps. Not so Jane Hott, who urged the others +to confess and "stoode to it very perversely that she was cleare." When +put to the swimming test she floated, and is said to have then declared +that the Devil "had sat upon a Cross beame and laughed at her." +Elizabeth Harris was examined, and gave some damaging evidence +against herself. She named several goodwives who had very loose +tongues.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203-1_109" id="Footnote_203-1_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203-1_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Stearne, 13, 14.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Witchcraft during the Commonwealth and +Protectorate.</h3> + + +<p>We have, in the last chapter, traced the history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +witchcraft in England through the Hopkins episode +of 1645-1647. From the trials at Ely in the autumn of +1647 to the discoveries at Berwick in the summer of +1649 there was a lull in the witch alarms. Then an epidemic +broke out in the north of England. We shall, +in this chapter, describe that epidemic and shall carry +the narrative of the important cases from that time to +the Restoration. In doing this we shall mark off two +periods, one from 1649 to 1653, when the executions +were still numerous, and a second from 1653 to 1659 +when there was a rapid falling off, not only in death +penalties for witchcraft, but even in accusations. To +be sure, this division is somewhat artificial, for there +was a gradual decline of the attack throughout the two +periods, but the year 1653 more nearly than any other +marks the year when that decline became visible.</p> + +<p>The epidemic of 1649 came from Scotland. Throughout +the year the northern kingdom had been "infested."<a name="FNanchor_206-1_1" id="FNanchor_206-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_206-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +From one end of that realm to the other the witch fires +had been burning. It was not to be supposed that they +should be suddenly extinguished when they reached the +border. In July the guild of Berwick had invited a +Scotchman who had gained great fame as a "pricker" +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>to come to Berwick, and had promised him immunity +from all violence.<a name="FNanchor_207-1_2" id="FNanchor_207-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_207-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> He came and proceeded to apply +his methods of detection. They rested upon the assumption +that a witch had insensible spots on her body, +and that these could be found by driving in a pin. By +such processes he discovered thirty witches, who were +sent to gaol. Some of them made confessions but refused +to admit that they had injured any one.<a name="FNanchor_207-2_3" id="FNanchor_207-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_207-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> On +the contrary, they had assisted Cromwell, so some of +the more ingenious of them claimed, at the battle of +Preston.<a name="FNanchor_207-3_4" id="FNanchor_207-3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_207-3_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Whether this helped their case we do not +know, for we are not told the outcome. It seems almost +certain, however, that few, if any, of them suffered +death. But the pricker went back to Scotland with +thirty pounds, the arrangement having been that he +was to receive twenty shillings a witch.</p> + +<p>He was soon called upon again. In December of the +same year the town of Newcastle underwent a scare. +Two citizens, probably serjeants, applied the test with +such success that in March (1649/50) a body of citizens +petitioned the common council that some definite +steps be taken about the witches. The council accepted +the suggestion and despatched two serjeants, doubtless +the men already engaged in the work, to Scotland to +engage the witch-pricker. He was brought to Newcastle +with the definite contract that he was to have his +passage going and coming and twenty shillings apiece +for every witch he found. The magistrates did every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>thing +possible to help him. On his arrival in Newcastle +they sent the bellman through the town inviting +every one to make complaints.<a name="FNanchor_208-1_5" id="FNanchor_208-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In this business-like +way they collected thirty women at the town hall, +stripped them, and put them to the pricking test. This +cruel, not to say indelicate, process was carried on with +additions that must have proved highly diverting to the +base-minded prickers and onlookers.<a name="FNanchor_208-2_6" id="FNanchor_208-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Fourteen women +and one man were tried (Gardiner says by the assizes) +and found guilty. Without exception they asserted +their innocence; but this availed not. In August of 1650 +they were executed on the town moor<a name="FNanchor_208-3_7" id="FNanchor_208-3_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-3_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> of Newcastle.<a name="FNanchor_208-4_8" id="FNanchor_208-4_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-4_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The witchfinder continued his activities in the north, +but a storm was rising against him. Henry Ogle, +a late member of Parliament, caused him to be jailed +and put under bond to answer the sessions.<a name="FNanchor_208-5_9" id="FNanchor_208-5_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_208-5_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Unfortunately +the man got away to Scotland, where he later +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>suffered death for his deeds, probably during the Cromwellian +regime in that country.<a name="FNanchor_209-1_10" id="FNanchor_209-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_209-1_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>We have seen that Henry Ogle had driven the +Scotch pricker out of the country. He participated in +another witch affair during this same period which is +quite as much to his credit. The children of George +Muschamp, in Northumberland, had been troubled for +two years (1645-1647) with strange convulsions.<a name="FNanchor_209-2_11" id="FNanchor_209-2_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_209-2_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The +family suspected Dorothy Swinow, who was the wife +of Colonel Swinow. It seems that the colonel's wife +had, at some time, spoken harshly to one of the children. +No doubt the sick little girl heard what they said. At +any rate her ravings began to take the form of accusations +against the suspected woman. The family consulted +John Hulton, "who could do more then God +allowed," and he accused Colonel Swinow's wife. But +unfortunately for him the child had been much better +during his presence, and he too was suspected. The +mother of the children now rode to a justice of the +peace, who sent for Hulton, but not for Mistress +Swinow. Then the woman appealed to the assizes, but +the judge, "falsely informed," took no action. Mrs. +Muschamp was persistent, and in the town of Berwick +she was able, at length, to procure the arrest of the +woman she feared. But Dorothy Swinow was not without +friends, who interfered successfully in her behalf. +Mrs. Muschamp now went to a "counsellor," who re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>fused +to meddle with the matter, and then to a judge, +who directed her to go to Durham. She did so and got +a warrant; but it was not obeyed. She then procured +a second warrant, and apparently succeeded in getting +an indictment. But it did her little good: Dorothy +Swinow was not apprehended.</p> + +<p>One can hardly refrain from smiling a little at the +unhappy Mrs. Muschamp and her zealous assistants, +the "physician" and the two clergymen. But her poor +daughters grew worse, and the sick child, who had before +seen angels in her convulsions, now saw the colonel's +wife and cried out in her ravings against the remiss +judge.<a name="FNanchor_210-1_12" id="FNanchor_210-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_210-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The case is at once pathetic and amusing, +but it has withal a certain significance. It was not only +Mrs. Swinow's social position that saved her, though +that doubtless carried weight. It was the reluctance of +the north-country justices to follow up accusations. +Not that they had done with trials. Two capital sentences +at Durham and another at Gateshead, although +perhaps after-effects of the Scotch pricker's activity, +showed that the witch was still feared; but such cases +were exceptions. In general, the cases resulted in acquittals. +We shall see, in another chapter, that the +discovery which alarmed Yorkshire and Northumberland +in 1673 almost certainly had this outcome; and the +cases tried at that time formed the last chapter in +northern witchcraft.</p> + +<p>But, if hanging witches was not easy in the north, +there were still districts in the southwest of England +where it could be done, with few to say nay. Anne +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>Bodenham,<a name="FNanchor_211-1_13" id="FNanchor_211-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_211-1_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> of Fisherton Anger in Wiltshire, had not +the social position of Dorothy Swinow, but she was the +wife of a clothier who had lived "in good fashion," +and in her old age she taught children to read. She +had, it seems, been in earlier life an apt pupil of Dr. +Lambe, and had learned from him the practice of magic +lore. She drew magic circles, saw visions of people in +a glass, possessed numerous charms and incantations, +and, above all, kept a wonderful magic book. She attempted +to find lost money, to tell the future, and to +cure disease; indeed, she had a varied repertoire of +occult performances.</p> + +<p>Now, Mistress Bodenham did all these things for +money and roused no antagonism in her community +until she was unfortunate enough to have dealings with +a maid-servant in a Wiltshire family. It is impossible +to get behind the few hints given us by the cautious +writer. The members of the family, evidently one of +some standing in Wiltshire, became involved in a quarrel +among themselves. It was believed, indeed, by +neighbors that there had been a conspiracy on the part +of some of the family to poison the mother-in-law. At +all events, a maid in the family was imprisoned for participation +in such a plot. It was then that Anne Bodenham +first came into the story. The maid, to judge from +the few data we have, in order to distract attention +from her own doings, made a confession that she had +signed a book of the Devil's with her own blood, all at +the instigation of Anne Bodenham. Moreover, Anne, +she said, had offered to send her to London in two +hours. This was communicated to a justice of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>peace, who promptly took the accused woman into +custody. The maid-servant, successful thus far, began +to simulate fits and to lay the blame for them on Mistress +Anne. Questioned as to what she conceived +her condition, she replied, "Oh very damnable, very +wretched." She could see the Devil, she said, on the +housetop looking at her. These fancies passed as facts, +and the accused woman was put to the usual humiliations. +She was searched, examined, and urged to confess. +The narrator of the story made effort after +effort to wring from her an admission of her guilt, but +she slipped out of all his traps. Against her accuser +she was very bitter. "She hath undone me ... that +am an honest woman, 'twill break my Husband's heart, +he grieves to see me in these Irons: I did once live in +good fashion."</p> + +<p>The case was turned over by the justices of the peace +to the assizes at Salisbury, where Chief Baron John +Wylde of the exchequer presided.<a name="FNanchor_212-1_14" id="FNanchor_212-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_212-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The testimony +of the maid was brought in, as well as the other proofs.<a name="FNanchor_212-2_15" id="FNanchor_212-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_212-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +All we know of the trial is that Anne was condemned, +and that Judge Wylde was so well satisfied with his +work that he urged Edmund Bower, who had begun an +account of the case, but had hesitated to expose himself +to "this Censorious Age," to go on with his booklet. +That detestable individual had followed the case closely. +After the condemnation he labored with the woman to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>make her confess. But no acknowledgment of guilt +could be wrung from the high-spirited Mistress Bodenham, +even when the would-be father confessor held +out to her the false hope of mercy. She made a will +giving gifts to thirty people, declared she had been +robbed by her maids in prison, lamented over her husband's +sorrow, and requested that she be buried under +the gallows. Like the McPherson who danced so wantonly +and rantingly beneath the gallows tree, she remained +brave-hearted to the end. When the officer told +her she must go with him to the place of execution, she +replied, "Be you ready, I am ready." The narrator +closes the account with some moral reflections. We +may close with the observation that there is no finer +instance of womanly courage in the annals of witchcraft +than that of Anne Bodenham. Doubtless she had +used charms, and experimented with glasses; it had +been done by those of higher rank than she.</p> + +<p>As for the maid, she had got herself well out of +trouble. When Mistress Bodenham had been hanged, +the fits ceased, and she professed great thankfulness +to God and a desire to serve him.</p> + +<p>The case of Joan Peterson, who was tried at the +Old Bailey in 1652, is another instance of the struggle +of a spirited woman against too great odds. Joan, like +Mistress Bodenham, kept various kinds of powders +and prescribed physic for ailing neighbors.<a name="FNanchor_213-1_16" id="FNanchor_213-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_213-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> It was, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>however, if we may believe her defender, not on account +of her prescriptions, but rather on account of her refusal +to swear falsely, that her downfall came. One would +be glad to know the name of the vigorous defender who +after her execution issued <i>A Declaration in Answer to +severall lying Pamphlets concerning the Witch of Wapping</i>. +His narrative of the plot against the accused +woman offers a plausible explanation of the affair and +is not improbably trustworthy. As he tells the story, +there were certain relatives of Lady Powell who had +been disappointed that her estate had been bequeathed +to Mrs. Anne Levingston. They conspired to get rid +of the heiress, went to a cunning woman, and offered +to pay her liberally if she would swear that Mrs. Levingston +had used sorcery to take away the life of Lady +Powell. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the cunning +woman betrayed their schemes. Not discouraged, +however, they employed another woman, who, +as their representative, went to Joan Peterson and +offered her a hundred pounds to swear that Mrs. Levingston +had procured from her "certain powders and +bags of seeds." Joan refused the proposition, and the +plotters, fearing a second exposure of their plans, determined +that Mistress Peterson should also be put +out of the way. They were able to procure a warrant +to have her arrested and searched. Great pressure +was put upon her to confess enough to implicate Mrs. +Levingston and she was given to understand that if she +would do so she would herself be spared. But Joan +refused their proffers and went to her trial. If the +narrative may be at all trusted there was little effort +to give her a fair hearing. Witnesses against her were +purchased in advance, strangers were offered money<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +to testify against her, and those who were to have given +evidence on her side were most of them intimidated +into staying away from the trial. Four physicians and +two surgeons signed a certificate that Lady Powell had +died from perfectly natural causes. It was of no +avail. Joan was convicted and died bravely, denying +her guilt to the end.<a name="FNanchor_215-1_17" id="FNanchor_215-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_215-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Her defender avers that some +of the magistrates in the case were involved in the +conspiracy against her. One of these was Sir John +Danvers, a member of Cromwell's council. In the +margin of his account the pamphleteer writes: "Sir +John Danvers came and dined at the Sessions house +and had much private discourse with the Recorder and +many of the Justices and came and sate upon the Bench +at her Trial, where he hath seldom or never been for +these many years."</p> + +<p>In July of 1652 occurred another trial that attracted +notice in its own time. Six Kentish women were tried +at the assizes at Maidstone before Peter Warburton.<a name="FNanchor_215-2_18" id="FNanchor_215-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_215-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> +We know almost nothing of the evidence offered +by the prosecution save that there was exhibited in the +Swan Inn at Maidstone a piece of flesh which the +Devil was said to have given to one of the accused, +and that a waxen image of a little girl figured in the +evidence. Some of the accused confessed that they had +used it in order to kill the child. Search was instituted +for it, and it was found, if the narrator may be trusted, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>under the door where the witches had said it would be.<a name="FNanchor_216-1_19" id="FNanchor_216-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +The six were all condemned and suffered execution. +Several others were arraigned, but probably escaped +trial.</p> + +<p>If the age was as "censorious" of things of this +nature as Edmund Bower had believed it to be, it is +rather remarkable that "these proceedings," which +were within a short distance of London, excited so little +stir in that metropolis. Elias Ashmole, founder of +the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and delver in astrology, +attended the trials, with John Tradescant, +traveller and gardener.<a name="FNanchor_216-2_20" id="FNanchor_216-2_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-2_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> He left no comments. The +<i>Faithful Scout</i>, in its issue of July 30-August 7, mentioned +the trial and the confessions, but refrained from +any expression of opinion.</p> + +<p>There were other trials in this period; but they must +be passed over rapidly. The physicians were quite as +busy as ever in suggesting witchcraft. We can detect +the hand of a physician in the attribution of the +strange illness of a girl who discharged great quantities +of stones to the contrivance of Catherine Huxley, +who was, in consequence, hanged at Worcester.<a name="FNanchor_216-3_21" id="FNanchor_216-3_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_216-3_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +In a case at Exeter the physician was only indirectly +responsible. When Grace Matthews had consulted him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>about her husband's illness, he had apparently given up +the case, and directed her to a wise woman.<a name="FNanchor_217-1_22" id="FNanchor_217-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_217-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The wise +woman had warned Mistress Matthews of a neighbor +"tall of stature and of a pale face and blinking eye," +against whom it would be well to use certain prescribed +remedies. Mrs. Matthews did so, and roused out the +witch, who proved to be a butcher's wife, Joan Baker. +When the witch found her spells thwarted, she turned +them against Mrs. Matthews's maid-servant, who in +consequence died. This was part of the evidence against +Joan, and it was confirmed by her own kinsfolk: her +father-in-law had seen her handling toads. She was +committed, but we hear no more of the case.</p> + +<p>That random accusations were not feared as they had +been was evidenced by the boldness of suspected parties +in bringing action against their accusers, even if boldness +was sometimes misjudged. We have two actions +of this sort.</p> + +<p>Joan Read of Devizes had been reported to be a +witch, and on that account had been refused by the +bakers the privilege of using their bakeries for her +dough.<a name="FNanchor_217-2_23" id="FNanchor_217-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_217-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> She threw down the glove to her accusers by +demanding that they should be brought by warrant to +accuse her. No doubt she realized that she had good +support in her community, and that her challenge was +not likely to be accepted. But a woman near Land's +End in Cornwall seems to have overestimated the support +upon which she could count. She had procured +a warrant against her accusers to call the case before +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>the mayor. The court sided with the accusers and the +woman was brought to trial. Caught herself, she proceeded +to ensnare others. As a result, eight persons +were sent to Launceston,<a name="FNanchor_218-1_24" id="FNanchor_218-1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-1_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and some probably suffered +death.<a name="FNanchor_218-2_25" id="FNanchor_218-2_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-2_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>We have already seen what a tangled web Mrs. Muschamp +wove when she set out to imprison a colonel's +wife. It would be easy to cite cases to show the same reluctance +to follow up prosecution. Four women at Leicester +searched Ann Chettle and found no evidence of +guilt.<a name="FNanchor_218-3_26" id="FNanchor_218-3_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-3_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> In Durham a case came up before Justice Henry +Tempest.<a name="FNanchor_218-4_27" id="FNanchor_218-4_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_218-4_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Mary Sykes was accused. Sara Rodes, a +child, awakening from sleep in a fright, had declared to +her mother that "Sikes' wife" had come in "att a hole +att the bedd feete" and taken her by the throat. Of +course Sara Rodes fell ill. Moreover, the witch had +been seen riding at midnight on the back of a cow and +at another time flying out of a "mistall windowe." +But the woman, in spite of the unfavorable opinion of +the women searchers, went free. There were cases +that seem to have ended the same way at York, at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>Leeds, and at Scarborough. They were hints of what +we have already noticed, that the northern counties +were changing their attitude.<a name="FNanchor_219-1_28" id="FNanchor_219-1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_219-1_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> But a case in Derbyshire +deserves more attention because the justice, +Gervase Bennett, was one of the members of Cromwell's +council. The case itself was not in any way unusual. +A beggar woman, who had been liberally supported by +those who feared her, was on trial for witchcraft. Because +of Bennett's close relation to the government, we +should be glad to know what he did with the case, but +the fact that the woman's conviction is not among the +records makes it probable that she was not bound over +to the assizes.<a name="FNanchor_219-2_29" id="FNanchor_219-2_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_219-2_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>We come now to examine the second of the sub-periods +into which we have divided the Interregnum. +We have been dealing with the interval between the war +and the establishment of the Protectorate, a time +that shaded off from the dark shadows of internecine +struggle towards the high light of steady peace and +security. By 1653 the equilibrium of England had been +restored. Cromwell's government was beginning to +run smoothly. The courts were in full swing. None of +those conditions to which we have attributed the spread +of the witch alarms of the Civil Wars were any longer +in operation. It is not surprising, then, that the Protectorate +was one of the most quiet periods in the annals +of witchcraft. While the years 1648-1653 had wit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>nessed +thirty executions in England, the period of the +Protectorate saw but half a dozen, and three of these +fell within the somewhat disturbed rule of Richard +Cromwell.<a name="FNanchor_220-1_30" id="FNanchor_220-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_220-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> In other words, there was a very marked +falling off of convictions for witchcraft, a falling off +that had indeed begun before the year 1653. Yet this +diminution of capital sentences does not by any means +signify that the realm was rid of superstition. In Middlesex, +in Somerset and Devon, in York, Northumberland, +and Cumberland, the attack upon witches on the +part of the people was going on with undiminished +vigor. If no great discoveries were made, if no nests +of the pestilent creatures were unearthed, the justices +of the peace were kept quite as busy with examinations +as ever before.</p> + +<p>To be sure, an analysis of cases proves that a larger +proportion of those haled to court were light offenders, +"good witches" whose healing arts had perhaps been +unsuccessful, dealers in magic who had aroused envy +or fear. The court records of Middlesex and York +are full of complaints against the professional enchanters. +In most instances they were dismissed. Now +and then a woman was sent to the house of correction,<a name="FNanchor_220-2_31" id="FNanchor_220-2_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_220-2_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> +but even this punishment was the exception.</p> + +<p>Two other kinds of cases appeared with less frequency. +We have one very clear instance at Wakefield, +in York, where a quarrel between two tenant farmers +over their highway rights became so bitter that a chance +threat uttered by the loser of the lawsuit, "It shall be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>a dear day's work for you," occasioned an accusation +of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_221-1_32" id="FNanchor_221-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> In another instance the debt of a +penny seems to have been the beginning of a hatred +between two impecunious creatures, and this brought +on a charge.<a name="FNanchor_221-2_33" id="FNanchor_221-2_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-2_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>The most common type of case, of course, was that +where strange disease or death played a part. In Yorkshire, +in Hertfordshire, and in Cornwall there were +trials based upon a sort of evidence with which the +reader is already quite familiar. It was easy for the +morbid mother of a dead child to recall or imagine +angry words spoken to her shortly before the death of +her offspring. It was quite as natural for a sick child +to be alarmed at the sight of a visitor and go into +spasms. There was no fixed rule, however, governing the +relation of the afflicted children and the possible witches. +When William Wade was named, Elizabeth Mallory +would fly into fits.<a name="FNanchor_221-3_34" id="FNanchor_221-3_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-3_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> When Jane Brooks entered the +room, a bewitched youth of Chard would become hysterical.<a name="FNanchor_221-4_35" id="FNanchor_221-4_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-4_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +It was the opposite way with a victim in Exeter,<a name="FNanchor_221-5_36" id="FNanchor_221-5_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-5_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +who remained well only so long as the witch who +caused the trouble stayed with him.<a name="FNanchor_221-6_37" id="FNanchor_221-6_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_221-6_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>Closely related to these types of evidence was what +has been denominated spectral evidence, a form of evidence +recurrent throughout the history of English +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>witchcraft. In the time of the Protectorate we have +at least three cases of the kind. The accused woman appeared +to the afflicted individual now in her own form, +again in other shapes, as a cat, as a bee, or as a dog.<a name="FNanchor_222-1_38" id="FNanchor_222-1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_222-1_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The +identification of a particular face in the head of a bee +must have been a matter of some difficulty, but there +is no ground for supposing that any objection was +made to this evidence in court. At all events, the testimony +went down on the official records in Yorkshire. +In Somerset the Jane Brooks case,<a name="FNanchor_222-2_39" id="FNanchor_222-2_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_222-2_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> already referred +to, called forth spectral evidence in a form that must +really have been very convincing. When the bewitched +boy cried out that he saw the witch on the wall, his +cousin struck at the place, upon which the boy cried +out, "O Father, Coz Gibson hath cut Jane Brooks's +hand, and 'tis bloody." Now, according to the story, +the constable proceeded to the woman's house and +found her hand cut.</p> + +<p>As to the social status of the people involved in the +Protectorate trials there is little to say, other than +has been said of many earlier cases. By far the larger +number of those accused, as we have already pointed +out, were charmers and enchanters, people who made a +penny here and twopence there, but who had at best +a precarious existence. Some of them, no doubt, traded +on the fear they inspired in their communities and begged +now a loaf of bread and now a pot of beer. They +were the same people who, when begging and enchanting +failed, resorted to stealing.<a name="FNanchor_222-3_40" id="FNanchor_222-3_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_222-3_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> In one of the Yorkshire +depositions we have perhaps a hint of another +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>class from which the witches were recruited. Katherine +Earle struck a Mr. Frank between the shoulders +and said, "You are a pretty gentleman; will you kisse +me?" When the man happened to die this solicitation +assumed a serious aspect.<a name="FNanchor_223-1_41" id="FNanchor_223-1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_223-1_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>Witchcraft was indeed so often the outcome of lower-class +bickering that trials involving the upper classes +seem worthy of special record. During the Protectorate +there were two rather remarkable trials. In +1656 William and Mary Wade were accused of bewitching +the fourteen-year-old daughter of Elizabeth +Mallory of Studley Hall. The Mallorys were a prominent +family in Yorkshire. The grandfather of the +accusing child had been a member of Parliament and +was a well known Royalist colonel. When Mistress +Elizabeth declared that her fits would not cease until +Mary Wade had said that she had done her wrong, +Mary Wade was persuaded to say the words. Elizabeth +was well at once, but Mary withdrew her admission +and Elizabeth resumed her fits, indeed "she was +paste holdinge, her extreamaty was such." She now +demanded that the two Wades should be imprisoned, +and when they were "both in holde" she became well +again. They were examined by a justice of the peace, +but were probably let off.<a name="FNanchor_223-2_42" id="FNanchor_223-2_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_223-2_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>The story of Diana Crosse at Exeter is a more pathetic +one. Mrs. Crosse had once kept a girls' school—could +it be that there was some connection between +teaching and witchcraft?<a name="FNanchor_223-3_43" id="FNanchor_223-3_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_223-3_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>—had met with misfortune, +and had at length been reduced to beggary. We have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>no means of knowing whether the suspicion of witchcraft +antedated her extreme poverty or not, but it seems +quite clear that the former school-teacher had gained +an ill name in the community. She resented bitterly +the attitude of the people, and at one time seems to have +appealed to the mayor. It was perhaps by this very +act that she focussed the suspicion of her neighbors. +To go over the details of the trial is not worth while. +Diana Crosse probably escaped execution to eke out +the remainder of her life in beggary.<a name="FNanchor_224-1_44" id="FNanchor_224-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_224-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>The districts of England affected by the delusion during +this period have already been indicated. While +there were random cases in Suffolk, Hertfordshire, +Wiltshire, Somerset, Cumberland, and Northumberland, +by far the greatest activity seems to have been +in Middlesex, Cornwall, and Yorkshire. To a layman +it looks as if the north of England had produced the +greater part of its folk-lore. Certain it is that the +witch stories of Yorkshire, as those of Lancaster at +another time, by their mysterious and romantic elements +made the trials of the south seem flat, stale, and +unprofitable. Yet they rarely had as serious results.</p> + +<p>To the historian the Middlesex cases must be more +interesting because they should afford some index of +the attitude of the central government. Unhappily we +do not know the fate of the Yorkshire witches, though +it has been surmised, in the absence of evidence to the +contrary, that they all escaped execution.<a name="FNanchor_224-2_45" id="FNanchor_224-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_224-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> In Middle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>sex +we know that during this period only one woman, +so far as our extant records go, was adjudged guilty. +All the rest were let go free. Now, this may be significant +and it may not. It does not seem unreasonable +to suppose that the Middlesex quarter sessions were in +harmony with the central government. Yet this can +be no more than a guess. It is not easy to take bearings +which will locate the position of the Cromwellian +government. The protector himself was occupied with +weightier matters, and, so far as we know, never uttered +a word on the subject. He was almost certainly +responsible for the pardon of Margaret Gyngell at +Salisbury in 1655,<a name="FNanchor_225-1_46" id="FNanchor_225-1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_225-1_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> yet we cannot be sure that he was +not guided in that case by special circumstances as well +as by the recommendation of subordinates.</p> + +<p>We have but little more evidence as to the attitude of +his council of state. It was three years before the Protectorate +was put into operation that the hesitating +sheriff of Cumberland, who had some witches on his +hands, was authorized to go ahead and carry out the +law.<a name="FNanchor_225-2_47" id="FNanchor_225-2_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_225-2_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> But on the other hand it was in the same period +that the English commissioners in Scotland put a +quietus on the witch alarms in that kingdom. In fact, +one of their first acts was to take over the accused +women from the church courts and demand the proof +against them.<a name="FNanchor_225-3_48" id="FNanchor_225-3_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_225-3_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> When it was found that they had been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>tortured into confessions, the commission resolved upon +an enquiry into the conduct of the sheriff, ministers, +and tormentors who had been involved. Several women +had been accused. Not one was condemned. The matter +was referred to the council of state, where it seems +likely that the action of the commissioners was ratified. +Seven or eight years later, in the administration of +Richard Cromwell, there was an instance where the +council, apparently of its own initiative, ordered a +party of soldiers to arrest a Rutlandshire witch. The +case was, however, dismissed later.<a name="FNanchor_226-1_49" id="FNanchor_226-1_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_226-1_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>To draw a definite conclusion from these bits of evidence +would be rash. We can perhaps reason somewhat +from the general attitude of the government. +Throughout the Protectorate there was a tendency, +which Cromwell encouraged, to mollify the rigor of the +criminal law. Great numbers of pardons were issued; +and when Whitelocke suggested that no offences should +be capital except murder, treason, and rebellion, no one +arose in holy horror to point out the exception of +witchcraft,<a name="FNanchor_226-2_50" id="FNanchor_226-2_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_226-2_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> and the suggestion, though never acted +upon, was favorably considered.<a name="FNanchor_226-3_51" id="FNanchor_226-3_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_226-3_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>When we consider this general attitude towards crime +in connection with what we have already indicated +about the rapid decline in numbers of witch convictions, +it seems a safe guess that the Cromwellian government, +while not greatly interested in witchcraft, was, so far +as interested, inclined towards leniency.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206-1_1" id="Footnote_206-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, III, 63, 97, 99, 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207-1_2" id="Footnote_207-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See an extract from the Guild Hall Books in John Fuller, <i>History +of Berwick</i> (Edinburgh, 1799), 155-156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207-2_3" id="Footnote_207-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Thomas Widdrington's letter to Whitelocke (Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, +III, 99). Widdrington said the man professed himself "an artist that +way." The writer was evidently somewhat skeptical.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207-3_4" id="Footnote_207-3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207-3_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208-1_5" id="Footnote_208-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Ralph Gardiner, <i>England's Grievance Discovered in Relation to the +Coal Trade</i> (London, 1655), 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208-2_6" id="Footnote_208-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208-3_7" id="Footnote_208-3_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-3_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See John Brand, <i>History and Antiquities of ... Newcastle</i> (London, +1789), II, 478, or the <i>Chronicon Mirabile</i> (London, 1841), 92, for +an extract from the parish registers, giving the names. A witch of +rural Northumberland was executed with them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208-4_8" id="Footnote_208-4_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-4_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The witches of 1649 were not confined to the north. Two are said +to have been executed at St. Albans, a man and a woman; one woman +was tried in Worcestershire, one at Gloucester, and two in Middlesex. +John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott, who suffered at St. Albans, +had gained some notoriety. Palmer had contracted with the Devil and +had persuaded his kinswoman to assist him in procuring the death of a +woman by the use of clay pictures. Both were probably practitioners +in magic. Palmer, even when in prison, claimed the power of transforming +men into beasts. The woman seems to have been put to the +swimming test. Both were condemned. Palmer, at his execution, gave +information about a "whole colledge of witches," most of them, no +doubt, practisers like himself, but his random accusations were probably +passed over. See <i>The Divels Delusions or A faithfull relation +of John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott ...</i> (1649).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208-5_9" id="Footnote_208-5_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208-5_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Ralph Gardiner, <i>op. cit.</i>, 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209-1_10" id="Footnote_209-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209-1_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i> At his execution, Gardiner says, he confessed that he had +been the death of 220 witches in Scotland and England. Either the +man was guilty of unseemly and boastful lying, which is very likely, +or Scotland was indeed badly "infested." See above, note 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209-2_11" id="Footnote_209-2_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209-2_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> This narrative is contained in <i>Wonderfull News from the North, +Or a True Relation of the Sad and Grievous Torments Inflicted upon ... three +Children of Mr. George Muschamp ...</i> (London, 1650).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210-1_12" id="Footnote_210-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The story of the case was sent down to London and there published, +where it soon became a classic among the witch-believing clergy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211-1_13" id="Footnote_211-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211-1_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See the two pamphlets by Edmond Bower described below in appendix +A, § 5, and Henry More, <i>Antidote against Atheisme</i>, bk. III, +ch. VII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212-1_14" id="Footnote_212-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Wylde was not well esteemed as a judge. On the institution of the +protectorate he was not reappointed by Cromwell.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212-2_15" id="Footnote_212-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Aubrey (who had it from an eye-witness) tells us that "the +crowd of spectators made such a noise that the judge could not heare +the prisoner, nor the prisoner the judge; but the words were handed +from one to the other by Mr. R. Chandler and sometimes not truly repeated." +John Aubrey, <i>Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme ...</i> +(ed. J. Britten, <i>Folk Lore Soc. Publications</i>, IV, 1881), 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213-1_16" id="Footnote_213-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> For the case see <i>The Tryall and Examinations of Mrs. Joan Peterson ...</i>; +<i>The Witch of Wapping, or an Exact ... Relation of +the ... Practises +of Joan Peterson ...</i>; <i>A Declaration in Answer to severall +lying Pamphlets concerning the Witch of Wapping ...</i>, (as to these +pamphlets, all printed at London in 1652, see below, appendix A, § 5); +<i>French Intelligencer</i>, April 6-13, 1652; <i>Weekly Intelligencer</i>, April 6-13, +1652; <i>The Faithful Scout</i>, April 9-16, 1652; <i>Mercurius Democritus</i>, April +7-17, 1652.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215-1_17" id="Footnote_215-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The <i>French Intelligencer</i> tells us the story of her execution: "She +seemed to be much dejected, having a melancholy aspect; she seemed +not to be much above 40 years of age, and was not in the least outwardly +deformed, as those kind of creatures usually are."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215-2_18" id="Footnote_215-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> For an account of this affair see <i>A Prodigious and Tragicall History +of the ... Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone ...</i> (London, +1652).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216-1_19" id="Footnote_216-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> It was "supposed," says the narrator, that nine children, besides +a man and a woman, had suffered at their hands, £500 worth of cattle +had been lost, and much corn wrecked at sea. Two of the women made +confession, but not to these things.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216-2_20" id="Footnote_216-2_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-2_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See Ashmole's diary as given in Charles Burman, <i>Lives of Elias +Ashmole, Esq., and Mr. William Lilly, written by themselves ...</i> (London, +1774), 316.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216-3_21" id="Footnote_216-3_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216-3_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In his <i>Certainty of the World of Spirits</i> (London, 1691), 44, 45, +Richard Baxter, who is by no means absolutely reliable, tells us about +this case. It should be understood that it is only a guess of the writer +that the physician was to blame for the accusation; but it much resembles +other cases where the physician started the trouble.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217-1_22" id="Footnote_217-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> William Cotton, <i>Gleanings from the Municipal and Cathedral Records +Relative to the History of the City of Exeter</i> (Exeter, 1877), +149-150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217-2_23" id="Footnote_217-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Various</i>, I, 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218-1_24" id="Footnote_218-1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-1_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Mercurius Politicus</i>, November 24-December 2, 1653. One of these +witches was perhaps the one mentioned as from Launceston in Cornwall +in R. and O. B. Peter, <i>The Histories of Launceston and Dunheved</i> +(Plymouth, 1885), 285: "the grave in w<sup>ch</sup> the wich was buryed."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218-2_25" id="Footnote_218-2_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-2_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Richard Burthogge, <i>An Essay upon Reason and the Nature of +Spirits</i> (London, 1694), 196, writes that he has the confessions in MS. +of "a great number of Witches (some of which were Executed) that +were taken by a Justice of Peace in Cornwall above thirty Years agoe." +It does not seem impossible that this is a reference to the same affair +as that mentioned by the Launceston record.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218-3_26" id="Footnote_218-3_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-3_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and Queries</i> (Leicester, 1891, +etc.), I, 247.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218-4_27" id="Footnote_218-4_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218-4_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> James Raine, ed., <i>A Selection from the Depositions in Criminal +Cases taken before the Northern Magistrates, from the Originals preserved +in York Castle</i> (Surtees Soc., no. 40, 1861), 28-30. Cited hereafter +as <i>York Depositions</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219-1_28" id="Footnote_219-1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219-1_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Yet in 1650 there had been a scare at Gateshead which cost the rate +payers £2, of which a significant item was 6 d. for a "grave for a +witch." <i>Denham Tracts</i> (Folk Lore Soc.), II, 338. At Durham, in +1652, two persons were executed. Richardson, <i>Table Book</i> (London, +1841), I, 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219-2_29" id="Footnote_219-2_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219-2_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> J. C. Cox, <i>Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals</i> (London, 1890), +II, 88. Cox, however, thinks it probable that she was punished.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220-1_30" id="Footnote_220-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> It is of course not altogether safe to reason from the absence of +recorded executions, and it is least safe in the time of the Civil Wars +and the years of recovery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220-2_31" id="Footnote_220-2_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220-2_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, ed. by J. C. Jeaffreson (London, 1892), +III, 295; <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Various</i>, I, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-1_32" id="Footnote_221-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-2_33" id="Footnote_221-2_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-2_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Hertfordshire County Sessions Rolls</i>, compiled by W. J. Hardy (Hertford, +1905), I, 126. It is not absolutely certain in the second case that the +committal was to the house of correction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-3_34" id="Footnote_221-3_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-3_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 76-77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-4_35" id="Footnote_221-4_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-4_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Joseph Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> (London, 1681), pt. +ii, 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-5_36" id="Footnote_221-5_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-5_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Cotton, <i>Gleanings ... relative to the History of ... Exeter</i>, 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221-6_37" id="Footnote_221-6_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221-6_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> In the famous Warboys case of 1593 it was the witch's presence +that relieved the bewitched of their ailments.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222-1_38" id="Footnote_222-1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222-1_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 64-67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222-2_39" id="Footnote_222-2_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222-2_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 120-121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222-3_40" id="Footnote_222-3_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222-3_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Various</i>, I, 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223-1_41" id="Footnote_223-1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223-1_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223-2_42" id="Footnote_223-2_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223-2_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 75-78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223-3_43" id="Footnote_223-3_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223-3_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See the story of Anne Bodenham.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224-1_44" id="Footnote_224-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Cotton, <i>Gleanings ... Relative to the History of ... Exeter</i>, 150-152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224-2_45" id="Footnote_224-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> James Raine, editor of <i>York Depositions</i>, writes that he has found no +instance of the conviction of a witch. Preface, xxx. <i>The Criminal +Chronology of York Castle, with a Register of Criminals capitally Convicted +and Executed</i> (York, 1867), contains not a single execution for +witchcraft.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225-1_46" id="Footnote_225-1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225-1_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Inderwick, <i>Interregnum</i>, 188-189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225-2_47" id="Footnote_225-2_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225-2_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1650, 159.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225-3_48" id="Footnote_225-3_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225-3_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> There are several secondary accounts of this affair. See F. Legge in +<i>Scottish Review</i>, XVIII, 267. But a most important primary source +is a letter from Clarke to Speaker Lenthall, published by the Scottish +History Society in its volume on <i>Scotland and the Commonwealth</i> (Edinburgh, +1895), 367-369. See also a tract in Brit. Mus. Thomason collection, +<i>Two Terrible Sea Fights</i> (London, 1652). See, too, the words +of Thomas Ady, <i>A Candle in the Dark</i>, 105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226-1_49" id="Footnote_226-1_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226-1_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1658-1659</i>, 169.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226-2_50" id="Footnote_226-2_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226-2_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> When the council of state, however, in 1652 had issued an act of +general pardon, witchcraft had been specifically reserved, along with +murder, treason, piracy, etc. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1651-1652</i>, 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226-3_51" id="Footnote_226-3_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226-3_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Inderwick, <i>Interregnum</i>, 231.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Literature of Witchcraft from 1603 to 1660.</h3> + + +<p>No small part of our story has been devoted to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +writings of Scot, Gifford, Harsnett, and King James. +It is impossible to understand the significance of the +prosecutions without some acquaintance with the course +of opinion on the subject. In this chapter we shall go +back as far as the opening of the reign of James and +follow up to the end of the Commonwealth the special +discussions of witchcraft, as well as some of the more +interesting incidental references. It will be recalled that +James's <i>Dæmonologie</i> had come out several years before +its author ascended the English throne. With the coming +of the Scottish king to Westminster the work was republished +at London. But, while James by virtue of +his position was easily first among those who were +writing on the subject, he by no means occupied the +stage alone. Not less than four other men gained a +hearing within the reign and for that reason deserve +consideration. They were Perkins, Cotta, Roberts, +and Cooper.</p> + +<p>William Perkins's <i>Discourse of the Damned Art +of Witchcraft</i> came first in order, indeed it was written +during the last years of Elizabeth's reign; but it was +not published until 1608, six years after the author's +death.<a name="FNanchor_227-1_1" id="FNanchor_227-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_227-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> William Perkins was a fellow of Christ's College +at Cambridge and an eminent preacher in that uni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>versity. +He holds a high place among Puritan divines. +His sermons may still be found in the libraries of older +clergymen and citations from them are abundant in +commentaries. It was in the course of one of his university +sermons that he took up the matter of witchcraft. +In what year this sermon was preached cannot +definitely be said. That he seems to have read Scot,<a name="FNanchor_228-1_2" id="FNanchor_228-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_228-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +that however he does not mention King James's book,<a name="FNanchor_228-2_3" id="FNanchor_228-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_228-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +are data which lead us to guess that he may have uttered +the discourse between 1584 and 1597. His point of +view was strictly theological and his convictions +grounded—as might be expected—upon scriptural +texts. Yet it seems not unfair to suppose that he was +an exponent of opinion at Cambridge, where we have +already seen evidences of strong faith in the reality +of witchcraft. It seems no less likely that a perusal +of Reginald Scot's <i>Discoverie</i> prompted the sermon. +Witches nowadays, he admitted, have their patrons. +His argument for the existence of witches was so +thoroughly biblical that we need not go over it. He +did not, however, hold to all current conceptions of +them. The power of the evil one to transform human +beings into other shapes he utterly repudiated. The +scratching of witches<a name="FNanchor_228-3_4" id="FNanchor_228-3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_228-3_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and the testing of them by +water he thought of no value.<a name="FNanchor_228-4_5" id="FNanchor_228-4_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_228-4_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In this respect it will +be seen that he was in advance of his royal contempor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>ary. +About the bodily marks, the significance of which +James so emphasized, Perkins seems to have been less +decided. He believed in the death penalty,<a name="FNanchor_229-1_6" id="FNanchor_229-1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-1_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> but he +warned juries to be very careful as to evidence.<a name="FNanchor_229-2_7" id="FNanchor_229-2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-2_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +Evidence based upon the accusations of "good +witches," upon the statements of the dying, or upon the +charges of those who had suffered ill after threats, he +thought ought to be used with great caution. It is evident +that Perkins—though he doubtless would not have +admitted it himself—was affected by the reading of +Scot. Yet it is disappointing to find him condoning +the use of torture<a name="FNanchor_229-3_8" id="FNanchor_229-3_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-3_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in extreme instances.<a name="FNanchor_229-4_9" id="FNanchor_229-4_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-4_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>A Cambridge man who wrote about a score of years +after Perkins put forth opinions a good deal farther +advanced. John Cotta was a "Doctor in Physicke" at +Northampton who had taken his B. A. at Cambridge +in 1595, his M. A. the following year, and his M. D. in +1603. Nine years after leaving Cambridge he had published +<i>A Short Discoverie of the Unobserved Dangers</i>, +in which he had devoted a very thoughtful chapter to +the relation between witchcraft and sickness. In 1616 +he elaborated his notions in <i>The Triall of Witchcraft</i>,<a name="FNanchor_229-5_10" id="FNanchor_229-5_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_229-5_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>published at London. Like Perkins he disapproved +of the trial by water.<a name="FNanchor_230-1_11" id="FNanchor_230-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He discredited, too, the evidence +of marks, but believed in contracts with the Devil, and +cited as illustrious instances the cases of Merlin and +"that infamous woman," Joan of Arc.<a name="FNanchor_230-2_12" id="FNanchor_230-2_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-2_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But his point +of view was of course mainly that of a medical man. +A large number of accusations of witchcraft were due +to the want of medical examination. Many so-called +possessions could be perfectly diagnosed by a physician. +He referred to a case where the supposed witches had +been executed and their victim had nevertheless fallen +ill again.<a name="FNanchor_230-3_13" id="FNanchor_230-3_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-3_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Probably this was the case of Mistress +Belcher, on whose account two women had been hanged +at Northampton.<a name="FNanchor_230-4_14" id="FNanchor_230-4_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-4_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>Yet Cotta believed that there were real witches and +arraigned Scot for failing to distinguish the impostors +from the true.<a name="FNanchor_230-5_15" id="FNanchor_230-5_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-5_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> It was indeed, he admitted, very hard +to discover, except by confession; and even confession, +as he had pointed out in his first work, might be a +"meane, poore and uncertain proofe," because of the +Devil's power to induce false confession.<a name="FNanchor_230-6_16" id="FNanchor_230-6_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-6_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Here the +theologian—it was hard for a seventeenth-century +writer not to be a theologian—was cropping out. But +the scientific spirit came to the front again when he +made the point that imagination was too apt to color +observations made upon bewitched and witch.<a name="FNanchor_230-7_17" id="FNanchor_230-7_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_230-7_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The +suggestion that coincidence explained many of the alleged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +fulfillments of witch predictions<a name="FNanchor_231-1_18" id="FNanchor_231-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_231-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> was equally in +advance of his times.</p> + +<p>How, then, were real cases of bewitchment to be +recognized? The best assurance on such matters, Cotta +answered, came "whensoever ... the Physicion shall +truely discover a manifest transcending power."<a name="FNanchor_231-2_19" id="FNanchor_231-2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_231-2_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> In +other words, the Northampton physician believed that +his own profession could best determine these vexed +matters. One who has seen the sorry part played by the +physicians up to this time can hardly believe that their +judgment on this point was saner than that of men in +other professions. It may even be questioned if they +were more to be depended upon than the so superstitious +clergy.</p> + +<p>In the same year as Cotta's second book, Alexander +Roberts, "minister of God's word at King's Lynn" in +Norfolk, brought out <i>A Treatise of Witchcraft</i> as a +sort of introduction to his account of the trial of Mary +Smith of that town and as a justification of her punishment. +The work is merely a restatement of the conventional +theology of that time as applied to witches, +exactly such a presentation of it as was to be expected +from an up-country parson who had read Reginald +Scot, and could wield the Scripture against him.<a name="FNanchor_231-3_20" id="FNanchor_231-3_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_231-3_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>The following year saw the publication of a work +equally theological, <i>The Mystery of Witchcraft</i>, by the +Reverend Thomas Cooper, who felt that his part in dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>covering +"the practise of Anti-Christ in that hellish +Plot of the Gunpowder-treason" enabled him to bring +to light other operations of the Devil. He had indeed +some experience in this work,<a name="FNanchor_232-1_21" id="FNanchor_232-1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_232-1_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> as well as some acquaintance +with the writers on the subject. But he +adds nothing to the discussion unless it be the coupling +of the disbelief in witchcraft with the "Atheisme +and Irreligion that overflows the land." Five years +later the book was brought out again under another +title, <i>Sathan transformed into an Angell of Light, ... +[ex]emplified specially in the Doctrine of Witchcraft</i>.</p> + +<p>In the account of the trials for witchcraft in the reign +of James I the divorce case of the Countess of Essex +was purposely omitted, because in it the question of +witchcraft was after all a subordinate matter. In the +history of opinion, however, the views about witchcraft +expressed by the court that passed upon the divorce +can by no means be ignored. It is not worth while to +rehearse the malodorous details of that singular affair. +The petitioner for divorce made the claim that her husband +was unable to consummate the marriage with her +and left it to be inferred that he was bewitched. It will +be remembered that King James, anxious to further the +plans of his favorite, Carr, was too willing to have the +marriage annulled and brought great pressure to bear +upon the members of the court. Archbishop Abbot +from the beginning of the trial showed himself unfavorable +to the petition of the countess, and James +deemed it necessary to resolve his doubts on the general +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>grounds of the divorce.<a name="FNanchor_233-1_22" id="FNanchor_233-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_233-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> On the matter of witchcraft +in particular the king wrote: "for as sure as God is, +there be Devils, and some Devils must have some power, +and their power is in this world.... That the Devil's +power is not so universal against us, that I freely confess; +but that it is utterly restrained <i>quoad nos</i>, how +was then a minister of Geneva bewitched to death, and +were the witches daily punished by our law. If they +can harm none but the papists, we are too charitable +for avenging of them only." This was James's opinion +in 1613, and it is worthy of note that he was much less +certain of his ground and much more on the defensive +about witchcraft than the author of the <i>Dæmonologie</i> +had been. It can hardly be doubted that he had already +been affected by the more liberal views of the ecclesiastics +who surrounded him. Archbishop Bancroft, +who had waged through his chaplain the war on the +exorcists, was not long dead. That chaplain was now +Bishop of Chichester and soon to become Archbishop +of York. It would be strange if James had not been +affected to some degree by their opinions. Moreover, +by this time he had begun his career as a discoverer of +impostors.</p> + +<p>The change in the king's position must, however, +not be overrated. He maintained his belief in witches +and seemed somewhat apprehensive lest others should +doubt it. Archbishop Abbot, whom he was trying +to win over to the divorce, would not have denied +James's theories, but he was exceedingly cautious +in his own use of the term <i>maleficium</i>. Abbot was +wholly familiar with the history of the Anglican atti<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>tude +towards exorcism. There can be little doubt that +he was in sympathy with the policy of his predecessor. +It is therefore interesting to read his carefully worded +statement as to the alleged bewitchment of the Earl of +Essex. In his speech defending his refusal and that +of three colleagues to assent to the divorce, he wrote: +"One of my lords (my lord of Winchester) hath avowed +it, that he dislikes that <i>maleficium</i>; that he hath read +Del Rio, the Jesuit, writing upon that argument, and +doth hold him an idle and fabulous fellow.... Another +of my lords (my lord of Ely) hath assented thereunto, +and <i>maleficium</i> must be gone. Now I for my part will +not absolutely deny that witches by God's permission +may have a power over men, to hurt all, or part in them, +as by God they shall be limited; but how shall it appear +that this is such a thing in the person of a man." +This was not, of course, an expression of disbelief in +the reality or culpability of witchcraft. It was an expression +of great reluctance to lay much stress upon +charges of witchcraft—an expression upon the part of +the highest ecclesiastical authority in England.</p> + +<p>In the reign of Charles I prior to the Civil Wars we +have to analyze but a single contribution to the literature +of our subject, that made by Richard Bernard. Bernard +had preached in Nottinghamshire and had gone +from there to Batcombe in Somerset. While yet in +Nottinghamshire, in the early years of James's reign, +he had seen something of the exorcizers.<a name="FNanchor_234-1_23" id="FNanchor_234-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_234-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Later he +had had to do with the Taunton cases of 1626; indeed, +he seems to have had a prominent part in this affair.<a name="FNanchor_234-2_24" id="FNanchor_234-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_234-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> +Presumably he had displayed some anxiety lest the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>witches should not receive fair treatment, for in his +<i>Guide to Grand-Jurymen ... in cases of Witchcraft</i>, published +in 1627, he explained the book as a "plaine +countrey Minister's testimony." Owing to his "upright +meaning" in his "painstaking" with one of the witches, +a rumor had spread that he favored witches or "were of +Master Scots erroneous opinion that Witches were silly +Melancholikes."<a name="FNanchor_235-1_25" id="FNanchor_235-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> He had undertaken in consequence +to familiarize himself with the whole subject and had +read nearly all the discussions in English, as well as +all the accounts of trials published up to that time. +His work he dedicated to the two judges at Taunton, +Sir John Walter and Sir John Denham, and to the +archdeacon of Wells and the chancellor of the Bishop +of Bath and Wells. The book was, indeed, a truly +remarkable patchwork. All shades of opinion from +that of the earnestly disbelieving Scot to that of the +earnestly believing Roberts were embodied. Nevertheless +Bernard had a wholesome distrust of possessions +and followed Cotta in thinking that catalepsy +and other related diseases accounted for many of +them.<a name="FNanchor_235-2_26" id="FNanchor_235-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He thought, too, that the Devil very often +acted as his own agent without any intermediary.<a name="FNanchor_235-3_27" id="FNanchor_235-3_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-3_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> +Like Cotta, he was skeptical as to the water ordeal;<a name="FNanchor_235-4_28" id="FNanchor_235-4_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-4_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +but, strange to say, he accepted the use of a magical +glass to discover "the suspected."<a name="FNanchor_235-5_29" id="FNanchor_235-5_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_235-5_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> He was inclined to +believe that the "apparition of the party suspected, +whom the afflicted in their fits seem to see," was a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>ground for suspicion. The main aim of his discourse +was, indeed, to warn judges and jurors to be very careful +by their questions and methods of inquiring to separate +the innocent from the guilty.<a name="FNanchor_236-1_30" id="FNanchor_236-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_236-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> In this contention, +indeed in his whole attitude, he was very nearly the +mouthpiece of an age which, while clinging to a belief, +was becoming increasingly cautious of carrying that +belief too far into judicial trial and punishment.<a name="FNanchor_236-2_31" id="FNanchor_236-2_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_236-2_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>It is a jump of seventeen years from Bernard of +Batcombe to John Gaule. It cannot be said that Gaule +marks a distinct step in the progress of opinion beyond +Bernard. His general position was much the same as +that of his predecessor. His warnings were perhaps +more earnest, his skepticism a little more apparent. In +an earlier chapter we have observed the bold way in +which the indignant clergyman of Huntingdonshire +took up Hopkins's challenge in 1646. It was the Hopkins +crusade that called forth his treatise.<a name="FNanchor_236-3_32" id="FNanchor_236-3_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_236-3_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> His little book +was in large part a plea for more caution in the use of +evidence. Suspicion was too lightly entertained against +"every poore and peevish olde Creature." Whenever +there was an extraordinary accident, whenever there +was a disease that could not be explained, it was imputed +to witchcraft. Such "Tokens of Tryall" he +deemed "altogether unwarrantable, as proceeding from +ignorance, humor, superstition." There were other +more reliable indications by which witches could sometimes +be detected, but those indications were to be used +with exceeding caution. Neither the evidence of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +fact—that is, of a league with the Devil—without confession +nor "confession without fact" was to be accounted +as certain proof. On the matter of confession +Gaule was extraordinarily skeptical for his time. It was +to be considered whether the party confessing were not +diabolically deluded, whether the confession were not +forced, or whether it were not the result of melancholy. +Gaule went even a little further. Not only was +he inclined to suspect confession, but he had serious +doubts about a great part of witch lore. There were +stories of metamorphoses, there were narratives of +"tedious journeys upon broomes," and a hundred other +tales from old authors, which the wise Christian would, +he believed, leave with the writers. To believe nothing +of them, however, would be to belittle the Divine +attributes. As a matter of fact there was a very considerable +part of the witch theory that Gaule accepted. +His creed came to this: it was unsafe to pronounce such +and such to be witches. While not one in ten was guilty, +the tenth was still to be accounted for.<a name="FNanchor_237-1_33" id="FNanchor_237-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_237-1_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> The physician +Cotta would have turned the matter over to the physicians; +the clergyman Gaule believed that it belonged +to the province of the "Magistracy and Ministery."<a name="FNanchor_237-2_34" id="FNanchor_237-2_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_237-2_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>During the period of the Commonwealth one would +have supposed that intellectual men would be entirely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>preoccupied with more weighty matters than the guilt +of witches. But the many executions that followed in +the wake of Hopkins and Stearne had invested the +subject with a new interest and brought new warriors +into the fray. Half a dozen writers took up the controversy. +On the conservative side three names deserve +mention, two of them not unknown in other connections, +Henry More and Meric Casaubon. For the defence +of the accused witches appeared two men hardly +so well known in their time, Robert Filmer and Thomas +Ady.</p> + +<p>More was a young Cambridge scholar and divine +who was to take rank among the English philosophers +of the seventeenth century. Grounded in Plato and +impregnated with Descartes, he became a little later +thoroughly infected with the Cabalistic philosophy that +had entered Europe from the East. It was the point +of view that he acquired in the study of this mystic +Oriental system that gave the peculiar turn to his witchcraft +notions, a turn which through his own writings +and those of Glanvill found wide acceptance. It was +in 1653 that More issued <i>An Antidote to Atheisme</i>. +The phenomena of witchcraft he reckoned as part of +the evidence for the reality of the spirit world and +used them to support religion, quite in the same manner +as Sir Oliver Lodge or Professor Hyslop would today +use psychical research to establish immortality. More +had made investigations for himself, probably at Maidstone. +In his own town of Cambridge there was a +story—doubtless a college joke, but he referred to it +in all seriousness—of "Old Strangridge," who "was +carried over Shelford Steeple upon a black Hogge and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +tore his breeches upon the weather-cock."<a name="FNanchor_239-1_35" id="FNanchor_239-1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_239-1_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> He believed +that he had absolute proof of the "nocturnal +conventicles" of witches.<a name="FNanchor_239-2_36" id="FNanchor_239-2_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_239-2_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> He had, however, none of +that instinct for scientific observation that had distinguished +Scot, and his researches did not prevent his +being easily duped. His observations are not by any +means so entertaining as are his theories. His effort to +account for the instantaneous transportation of witches +is one of the bright spots in the prosy reasonings of the +demonologists. More was a thoroughgoing dualist. Mind +and matter were the two separate entities. Now, the +problem that arose at once was this: How can the souls +of witches leave their bodies? "I conceive," he says, +"the Divell gets into their body and by his subtile substance +more operative and searching than any fire or +putrifying liquor, melts the yielding Campages of the +body to such a consistency ... and makes it plyable +to his imagination: and then it is as easy for him to +work it into what shape he pleaseth."<a name="FNanchor_239-3_37" id="FNanchor_239-3_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_239-3_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> If he could do +that, much more could he enable men to leave their +bodies. Then arose the problem: How does this process +differ from death? The writer was puzzled apparently +at his own question, but reasoned that death +was the result of the unfitness of the body to contain +the soul.<a name="FNanchor_239-4_38" id="FNanchor_239-4_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_239-4_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> But no such condition existed when the +Devil was operating; and no doubt the body could be +anointed in such fashion that the soul could leave and +return.</p> + +<p>Meric Casaubon, son of the eminent classical scholar +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>and himself a well known student, was skeptical as to +the stories told about the aerial journeys of witches +which More had been at such pains to explain. It was a +matter, he wrote in his <i>Treatise concerning Enthusiasme</i>,<a name="FNanchor_240-1_39" id="FNanchor_240-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +of much dispute among learned men. The confessions +made were hard to account for, but he would +feel it very wrong to condemn the accused upon that +evidence. We shall meet with Casaubon again.<a name="FNanchor_240-2_40" id="FNanchor_240-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-2_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>Nathaniel Homes, who wrote from his pastoral study +at Mary Stayning's in London, and dedicated his +work<a name="FNanchor_240-3_41" id="FNanchor_240-3_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-3_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> to Francis Rous, member of Parliament, was no +halfway man. He was a thoroughgoing disciple of +Perkins. His utmost admission—the time had come +when one had to make some concessions—was that evil +spirits performed many of their wonders by tricks of +juggling.<a name="FNanchor_240-4_42" id="FNanchor_240-4_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-4_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> But he swallowed without effort all the +nonsense about covenants, and was inclined to see in the +activities of the Devil a presage of the last days.<a name="FNanchor_240-5_43" id="FNanchor_240-5_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_240-5_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>The reader can readily see that More, Casaubon, and +Homes were all on the defensive. They were compelled +to offer explanations of the mysteries of witchcraft, +they were ready enough to make admissions; but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>they were nevertheless sticking closely to the main doctrines. +It is a pleasure to turn to the writings of two +men of somewhat bolder stamp, Robert Filmer and +Thomas Ady. Sir Robert Filmer was a Kentish knight +of strong royalist views who had written against the +limitations of monarchy and was not afraid to cross +swords with Milton and Hobbes on the origin of government. +In 1652 he had attended the Maidstone +trials, where, it will be remembered, six women had +been convicted. As Scot had been stirred by the St. +Oses trials, so Filmer was wrought up by what he had +seen at Maidstone,<a name="FNanchor_241-1_44" id="FNanchor_241-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_241-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and in the following year he published +his <i>Advertisement to the Jurymen of England</i>. +He set out to overturn the treatise of Perkins. As a consequence +he dealt with Scripture and the interpretation +of the well known passages in the Old Testament. The +Hebrew witch, Filmer declared, was guilty of nothing +more than "lying prophecies." The Witch of Endor +probably used "hollow speaking." In this suggestion +Filmer was following his famous Kentish predecessor.<a name="FNanchor_241-2_45" id="FNanchor_241-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_241-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> +But Filmer's main interest, like Bernard's and +Gaule's before him, was to warn those who had to try +cases to be exceedingly careful. He felt that a great +part of the evidence used was worth little or nothing.</p> + +<p>Thomas Ady's <i>Candle in the Dark</i> was published +three years later.<a name="FNanchor_241-3_46" id="FNanchor_241-3_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_241-3_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Even more than Filmer, Ady was a +disciple of Scot. But he was, indeed, a student of all +English writers on the subject and set about to answer +them one by one. King James, whose book he persistently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +refused to believe the king's own handiwork, +Cooper, who was a "bloudy persecutor," Gifford, +who "had more of the spirit of truth in him than many," +Perkins, the arch-enemy, Gaule, whose "intentions +were godly," but who was too far "swayed by the common +tradition of men,"<a name="FNanchor_242-1_47" id="FNanchor_242-1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_242-1_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> all of them were one after +another disposed of. Ady stood eminently for good +sense. It was from that point of view that he ridiculed +the water ordeal and the evidence of marks,<a name="FNanchor_242-2_48" id="FNanchor_242-2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_242-2_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> and that +he attacked the cause and effect relation between +threats and illness. "They that make this Objection +must dwell very remote from Neighbours."<a name="FNanchor_242-3_49" id="FNanchor_242-3_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_242-3_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>Yet not even Ady was a downright disbeliever. He +defended Scot from the report "that he held an opinion +that Witches are not, for it was neither his Tenent +nor is it mine." Alas, Ady does not enlighten us as to +just what was his opinion. Certainly his witches were +creatures without power.<a name="FNanchor_242-4_50" id="FNanchor_242-4_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_242-4_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> What, then, were they? +Were they harmless beings with malevolent minds? +Mr. Ady does not answer.</p> + +<p>A hundred years of witchcraft history had not +brought to light a man who was willing to deny in a +printed work the existence of witches. Doubtless such +denial might often have been heard in the closet, but it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>was never proclaimed on the housetop. Scot had not +been so bold—though one imagines that if he had been +quietly questioned in a corner he might have denied +the thing <i>in toto</i>—and those who had followed in his +steps never ventured beyond him.</p> + +<p>The controversy, indeed, was waged in most of its +aspects along the lines laid down by the first aggressor. +Gifford, Cotta, and Ady had brought in a few new arguments +to be used in attacking superstition, but in general +the assailants looked to Scot. On the other side, +only Perkins and More had contributed anything +worth while to the defence that had been built up. Yet, +the reader will notice that there had been progress. +The centre of struggle had shifted to a point within the +outer walls. The water ordeal and the evidence of +marks were given up by most, if not all. The struggle +now was over the transportation of witches through +the air and the battle was going badly for the defenders.</p> + +<p>We turn now to the incidental indications of the +shifting of opinion. In one sense this sort of evidence +means more than the formal literature. Yet its fragmentary +character at best precludes putting any great +stress upon it.</p> + +<p>If one were to include all the references to witchcraft +in the drama of the period, this discussion might +widen out into a long chapter. Over the passages in the +playwrights we must pass with haste; but certain +points must be noted. Shakespeare, in <i>Macbeth</i>, which +scholars have usually placed at about 1606, used a +great body of witch lore. He used it, too, with apparent +good faith, though to conclude therefrom that +he believed in it himself would be a most dangerous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +step.<a name="FNanchor_244-1_51" id="FNanchor_244-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-1_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Thomas Middleton, whose <i>Witch</i> probably +was written somewhat later, and who is thought to +have drawn on Shakespeare for some of his witch +material, gives absolutely no indication in that play +that he did not credit those tales of witch performances +of which he availed himself. The same may be +said of Dekker and of those who collaborated with him +in writing <i>The Witch of Edmonton</i>.<a name="FNanchor_244-2_52" id="FNanchor_244-2_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-2_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>We may go further and say that in none of these +three plays is there any hint that there were disbelievers. +But when we come to Ben Jonson we have +a different story. His various plays we cannot here +take up. Suffice it to say, on the authority of careful +commentators, that he openly or covertly ridiculed +all the supposedly supernatural phenomena of his +time.<a name="FNanchor_244-3_53" id="FNanchor_244-3_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-3_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Perhaps a search through the obscurer dramatists +of the period might reveal other evidences of +skepticism. Such a search we cannot make. It must, +however, be pointed out that Thomas Heywood, in +<i>The late Lancashire Witches</i><a name="FNanchor_244-4_54" id="FNanchor_244-4_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-4_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> a play which is described +at some length in an earlier chapter, makes a +character say:<a name="FNanchor_244-5_55" id="FNanchor_244-5_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_244-5_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> "It seemes then you are of opinion +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>that there are witches. For mine own part I can hardly +be induc'd to think there is any such kinde of people."<a name="FNanchor_245-1_56" id="FNanchor_245-1_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_245-1_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> +The speech is the more notable because Heywood's +own belief in witchcraft, as has been observed in another +connection, seems beyond doubt.</p> + +<p>The interest in witchcraft among literary men was +not confined to the dramatists. Three prose writers +eminent in their time dealt with the question. Burton, +in his <i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i><a name="FNanchor_245-2_57" id="FNanchor_245-2_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_245-2_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> admits that "many +deny witches at all, or, if there be any, they can do no +harm." But he says that on the other side are grouped +most "Lawyers, Divines, Physitians, Philosophers." +James Howell, famous letter-writer of the mid-century, +had a similar reverence for authority: "I say ... that +he who denies there are such busy Spirits and such poor +passive Creatures upon whom they work, which commonly +are call'd Witches ... shews that he himself +hath a Spirit of Contradiction in him."<a name="FNanchor_245-3_58" id="FNanchor_245-3_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_245-3_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> There are, +he says, laws against witches, laws by Parliament and +laws in the Holy Codex.</p> + +<p>Francis Osborne, a literary man whose reputation +hardly survived his century, but an essayist of great +fame in his own time,<a name="FNanchor_245-4_59" id="FNanchor_245-4_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_245-4_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> was a man who made his fortune +by sailing against rather than with the wind. It +was conventional to believe in witches and Osborne +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>would not for any consideration be conventional. He +assumed the skeptical attitude,<a name="FNanchor_246-1_60" id="FNanchor_246-1_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_246-1_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> and perhaps was as +influential as any one man in making that attitude +fashionable.</p> + +<p>From these lesser lights of the literary world we +may pass to notice the attitude assumed by three men +of influence in their own day, whose reputations have +hardly been dimmed by time, Bacon, Selden, and +Hobbes. Not that their views would be representative +of their times, for each of the three men thought in +his own way, and all three were in many respects in +advance of their day. At some time in the reign of +James I Francis Bacon wrote his <i>Sylva Sylvarum</i> and +rather incidentally touched upon witchcraft. He +warned judges to be wary about believing the confessions +of witches and the evidence against them. "For +the witches themselves are imaginative and believe oft-times +they do that which they do not; and people are +credulous in that point, and ready to impute accidents +and natural operations to witchcraft. It is worthy the +observing, that ... the great wonders which they tell, +of carrying in the air, transporting themselves into +other bodies, &c., are still reported to be wrought, not +by incantations, or ceremonies, but by ointments, and +anointing themselves all over. This may justly move +a man to think that these fables are the effects of imagination."<a name="FNanchor_246-2_61" id="FNanchor_246-2_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_246-2_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> + +<p>Surely all this has a skeptical sound. Yet largely on +the strength of another passage, which has been carelessly +read, the great Bacon has been tearfully num<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>bered +among the blindest leaders of the blind.<a name="FNanchor_247-1_62" id="FNanchor_247-1_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-1_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> A +careful comparison of his various allusions to witchcraft +will convince one that, while he assumed a belief +in the practice,<a name="FNanchor_247-2_63" id="FNanchor_247-2_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-2_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> partly perhaps in deference to +James's views,<a name="FNanchor_247-3_64" id="FNanchor_247-3_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-3_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> he inclined to explain many reported +phenomena from the effects of the imagination<a name="FNanchor_247-4_65" id="FNanchor_247-4_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-4_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> and +from the operation of "natural causes" as yet unknown.<a name="FNanchor_247-5_66" id="FNanchor_247-5_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-5_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>Bacon, though a lawyer and man of affairs, had the +point of view of a philosopher. With John Selden +we get more directly the standpoint of a legal man. In +his <i>Table Talk</i><a name="FNanchor_247-6_67" id="FNanchor_247-6_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_247-6_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> that eminent jurist wrote a paragraph +on witches. "The Law against Witches," he declared, +"does not prove there be any; but it punishes the +Malice of those people that use such means to take away +mens Lives. If one should profess that by turning his +Hat thrice and crying Buz, he could take away a man's +life (though in truth he could do no such thing) yet +this were a just Law made by the State, that whosoever +should turn his Hat thrice and cry Buz, with an +intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>death."<a name="FNanchor_248-1_68" id="FNanchor_248-1_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-1_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> As to the merits of this legal quip the less +said the better; but it is exceedingly hard to see in the +passage anything but downright skepticism as to the +witch's power.<a name="FNanchor_248-2_69" id="FNanchor_248-2_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-2_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>It is not without interest that Selden's point of view +was exactly that of the philosopher Hobbes. There +is no man of the seventeenth century, unless it be Oliver +Cromwell or John Milton, whose opinion on this +subject we would rather know than that of Hobbes. +In 1651 Hobbes had issued his great <i>Leviathan</i>. It is +unnecessary here to insist upon the widespread influence +of that work. Let it be said, however, that +Hobbes was not only to set in motion new philosophies, +but that he had been tutor to Prince Charles<a name="FNanchor_248-3_70" id="FNanchor_248-3_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-3_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> and +was to become a figure in the reign of that prince.<a name="FNanchor_248-4_71" id="FNanchor_248-4_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-4_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> +Hobbes's work was directed against superstition in +many forms, but we need only notice his statement +about witchcraft, a statement that did not by any +means escape his contemporaries. "As for Witches," +he wrote, "I think not that their witchcraft is any reall +power; but yet that they are justly punished for the +false beliefe they have that they can do such mischief, +joined with their purpose to do it if they can."<a name="FNanchor_248-5_72" id="FNanchor_248-5_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_248-5_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Perhaps +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>the great philosopher had in mind those pretenders to +diabolic arts who had suffered punishment, and was so +defending the community that had rid itself of a preying +class. In any case, while he defended the law, he +put himself among the disbelievers in witchcraft.</p> + +<p>From these opinions of the great we may turn to +mark the more trivial indications of the shifting of +opinion to be found in the pamphlet literature. It +goes without saying that the pamphlet-writers believed +in that whereof they spoke. It is not in their outspoken +faith that we are interested, but rather in their +mention of those opponents at whose numbers they +marvelled, and whose incredulity they undertook to +shake. Nowhere better than in the prefaces of the +pamphleteers can evidence be found of the growing +skepticism. The narrator of the Northampton cases +in 1612 avowed it his purpose in writing to convince the +"many that remaine yet in doubt whether there be +any Witches or no."<a name="FNanchor_249-1_73" id="FNanchor_249-1_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_249-1_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> That ardent busybody, Mr. +Potts, who reported the Lancaster cases of 1612, very +incidentally lets us know that the kinsfolk and friends +of Jennet Preston, who, it will be remembered, suffered +at York, declared the whole prosecution to be an +act of malice.<a name="FNanchor_249-2_74" id="FNanchor_249-2_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_249-2_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> The Yorkshire poet and gentleman, +Edward Fairfax, who made such an ado about the +sickness of his two daughters in 1622 and would have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>sent six creatures to the gallows for it, was very frank +in describing the opposition he met. The accused +women found supporters among the "best able and +most understanding."<a name="FNanchor_250-1_75" id="FNanchor_250-1_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-1_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> There were, he thought, three +kinds of people who were doubters in these matters: +those who attributed too much to natural causes and +who were content to call clear cases of bewitchment +convulsions, those who when witchcraft was broached +talked about fairies and "walking ghosts," and lastly +those who believed there were no witches. "Of this +opinion I hear and see there be many, some of them +men of worth, religious and honest."<a name="FNanchor_250-2_76" id="FNanchor_250-2_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-2_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> + +<p>The pamphlet-writers of James's reign had adjusted +themselves to meet opposition. Those of the Civil +Wars and the Commonwealth were prepared to meet +ridicule.<a name="FNanchor_250-3_77" id="FNanchor_250-3_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-3_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> "There are some," says the narrator of a +Yorkshire story, "who are of opinion that there are +no Divells nor any witches.... Men in this Age are +grown so wicked, that they are apt to believe there +are no greater Divells than themselves."<a name="FNanchor_250-4_78" id="FNanchor_250-4_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_250-4_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Another +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>writer, to bolster up his story before a skeptical public, +declares that he is "very chary and hard enough to believe +passages of this nature."<a name="FNanchor_251-1_79" id="FNanchor_251-1_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-1_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>We have said that the narrators of witch stories +fortified themselves against ridicule. That ridicule +obviously must have found frequent expression in +conversation, but sometimes it even crept into the +newspapers and tracts of the day. The Civil Wars +had developed a regular London press. We have +already met with expressions of serious opinion from +it.<a name="FNanchor_251-2_80" id="FNanchor_251-2_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-2_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> But not all were of that sort. In 1654 the <i>Mercurius +Democritus</i>, the <i>Punch</i> of its time, took occasion +to make fun of the stories of the supernatural then +in circulation. There was, it declared, a strange story +of a trance and apparition, a ghost was said to be +abroad, a woman had hanged herself in a tobacco +pipe. With very broad humor the journal took off the +strange reports of the time and concluded with the +warning that in "these distempered times" it was not +safe for an "idle-pated woman" to look up at the +skies.<a name="FNanchor_251-3_81" id="FNanchor_251-3_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_251-3_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p>The same mocking incredulity had manifested itself +in 1648 in a little brochure entitled, <i>The Devil seen at +St. Albans, Being a true Relation how the Devill was +seen there in a Cellar, in the likeness of a Ram; and +how a Butcher came and cut his throat, and sold some +of it, and dressed the rest for himselfe, inviting many +to supper, who did eat of it</i>.<a name="FNanchor_252-1_82" id="FNanchor_252-1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-1_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> The story was a clever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> +parody of the demon tracts that had come out so +frequently in the exciting times of the wars. The +writer made his point clear when he declared that his +story was of equal value with anything that "Britannicus" +ever wrote.<a name="FNanchor_252-2_83" id="FNanchor_252-2_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-2_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> The importance of these indications +may be overestimated. But they do mean that +there were those bold enough to make fun. A decade +or two later ridicule became a two-edged knife, cutting +superstition right and left. But even under the terribly +serious Puritans skepticism began to avail itself +of that weapon, a weapon of which it could hardly be +disarmed.</p> + +<p>In following the history of opinion we must needs +mention again some of the incidents of certain cases +dealt with in earlier chapters, incidents that indicate +the growing force of doubt. The reader has hardly +forgotten the outcome of the Lancashire cases in 1633. +There Bishop Bridgeman and the king, if they did not +discredit witchcraft, discredited its manifestation in +the particular instance.<a name="FNanchor_252-3_84" id="FNanchor_252-3_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-3_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> As for William Harvey, he +had probably given up his faith in the whole business +after the little incident at Newmarket.<a name="FNanchor_252-4_85" id="FNanchor_252-4_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_252-4_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> When we +come to the time of the Civil Wars we cannot forget +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>that Stearne and Hopkins met opposition, not alone +from the Huntingdon minister, but from a large party +in Norfolk, who finally forced the witchfinder to defend +himself in court. Nor can we forget the witch-pricker +of Berwick who was sent a-flying back to his +native northern soil, nor the persistent Mrs. Muschamp +who tramped over Northumberland seeking a warrant +and finding none.</p> + +<p>The course of opinion is a circuitous one. We have +followed its windings in and out through more than +half a century. We have listened as respectfully as +possible to the vagaries of country parsons and university +preachers, we have heard from scholars, from +gentlemen, from jurists and men of affairs, from physicians +and philosophers. It matters little now what +they thought or said, but it did matter then. We have +seen how easy a thing it was to fall into the error that +a middle course was nearest truth. Broad was the +way and many there were that walked therein. Yet +even those who travelled that highway found their +direction shifting. For there was progress in opinion. +With every decade the travellers, as well those who +strayed aside as those who followed the crowd, were +getting a little nearer to truth.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227-1_1" id="Footnote_227-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Printed by Cantrel Legge, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge" +(1608, 1610).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228-1_2" id="Footnote_228-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <i>Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft</i>, ch. VII, sect. I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228-2_3" id="Footnote_228-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> His literary executor, Thomas Pickering, late of Emmanuel College, +Cambridge, and now "Minister of Finchingfield in Essex," who prepared +the <i>Discourse</i> for the press (both in its separate form and as a +part of Perkins's collected works), and who dedicates it to Sir Edward +Coke, is, however, equally silent as to James, though in his preface he +mentions Scot by name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228-3_4" id="Footnote_228-3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228-3_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. IV, sect. I. See also ch. II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228-4_5" id="Footnote_228-4_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228-4_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. VII, sect. II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229-1_6" id="Footnote_229-1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-1_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. VI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229-2_7" id="Footnote_229-2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-2_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. VII, sect. II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229-3_8" id="Footnote_229-3_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-3_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. VII, sect. II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229-4_9" id="Footnote_229-4_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-4_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> James Mason, "Master of Artes," whose <i>Anatomie of Sorcerie</i> +("printed at London by John Legatte, Printer to the Universitie of +Cambridge," 1612), puts him next to Perkins in chronological order, +needs only mention in passing. He takes the reality of sorcery for +granted, and devotes himself to argument against its use.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229-5_10" id="Footnote_229-5_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229-5_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>... Shewing the True and Right Methode of the Discovery.</i> +Cotta was familiar with the more important trials of his time. He +knew of the Warboys, Lancaster, and York trials and he probably had +come into close contact with the Northampton cases. He had read, +too, several of the books on the subject, such as Scot, Wier, and Perkins. +His omission of King James's work is therefore not only curious but +significant. A second edition of his book was published in 1625.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-1_11" id="Footnote_230-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See <i>Triall of Witchcraft</i>, ch. XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-2_12" id="Footnote_230-2_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-2_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, p. 48.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-3_13" id="Footnote_230-3_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-3_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 66-67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-4_14" id="Footnote_230-4_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-4_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, ch. VI. Cotta speaks of the case as six years earlier.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-5_15" id="Footnote_230-5_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-5_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 62, 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-6_16" id="Footnote_230-6_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-6_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>A Short Discoverie</i>, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230-7_17" id="Footnote_230-7_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230-7_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Triall of Witchcraft</i>, 83-84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231-1_18" id="Footnote_231-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>A Short Discoverie</i>, 51-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231-2_19" id="Footnote_231-2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231-2_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Triall of Witchcraft</i>, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231-3_20" id="Footnote_231-3_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231-3_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Roberts's explanation of the proneness of women to witchcraft +deserves mention in passing. Women are more credulous, more curious, +"their complection is softer," they have "greater facility to fall," +greater desire for revenge, and "are of a slippery tongue." <i>Treatise of +Witchcraft</i>, 42-43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232-1_21" id="Footnote_232-1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232-1_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> "In Cheshire and Coventry," he tells us. "Hath not Coventrie," +he asks (p. 16), "beene usually haunted by these hellish Sorcerers, +where it was confessed by one of them, that no lesse than three-score +were of that confedracie?... And was I not there enjoyned by a +necessity to the discoverie of this Brood?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233-1_22" id="Footnote_233-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> For the whole case see Howell, <i>State Trials</i>, II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234-1_23" id="Footnote_234-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See article on Bernard in <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234-2_24" id="Footnote_234-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See below, appendix C, list of witch cases, under 1626.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235-1_25" id="Footnote_235-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See <i>Guide to Grand-Jurymen</i>, Dedication.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235-2_26" id="Footnote_235-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 11-12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235-3_27" id="Footnote_235-3_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-3_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235-4_28" id="Footnote_235-4_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-4_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235-5_29" id="Footnote_235-5_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235-5_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This he did on the authority of a repentant Mr. Edmonds, of +Cambridge, who had once been questioned by the University authorities +for witchcraft. <i>Ibid.</i>, 136-138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236-1_30" id="Footnote_236-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Guide to Grand-Jurymen</i>, 22-28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236-2_31" id="Footnote_236-2_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236-2_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> He was "for the law, but agin' its enforcement."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236-3_32" id="Footnote_236-3_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236-3_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcraft</i> (London, +1646).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237-1_33" id="Footnote_237-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237-1_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237-2_34" id="Footnote_237-2_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237-2_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 94, 97. That Gaule was a Puritan, as has been asserted, appears +from nothing in his book. If he dedicated his <i>Select Cases</i> to his +townsman Colonel Walton, a brother-in-law of Cromwell, and his <i>Mag-astro-mancer</i> +(a later diatribe against current superstitions) to Oliver +himself, there is nothing in his prefatory letters to show him of their +party. Nor does the tone of his writings suggest a Calvinist. That +in 1649 we find Gaule chosen to preach before the assizes of Huntingdon +points perhaps only to his popularity as a leader of the reaction against +the work of Hopkins.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239-1_35" id="Footnote_239-1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239-1_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Antidote to Atheisme</i>, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239-2_36" id="Footnote_239-2_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239-2_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 127-130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239-3_37" id="Footnote_239-3_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239-3_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. VIII, 134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239-4_38" id="Footnote_239-4_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239-4_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240-1_39" id="Footnote_240-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See p. 118. This <i>Treatise</i> was first published in 1655. Four years +later, in 1659, he published <i>A True and faithful Relation of what +passed ... between Dr. John Dee, ... and some spirits</i>. In the +preface to this he announced his intention of writing the work which +he later published as <i>Of Credulity and Incredulity</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240-2_40" id="Footnote_240-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-2_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> In passing we must mention Richard Farnworth, who in 1655 issued +a pamphlet called <i>Witchcraft Cast out from the Religious Seed and +Israel of God</i>. Farnworth was a Quaker, and wrote merely to warn his +brethren against magic and sorcery. He never questioned for a moment +the facts of witchcraft and sorcery, nor the Devil's share in them. +As for the witches, they were doomed everlastingly to the lake of fire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240-3_41" id="Footnote_240-3_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-3_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Dæmonologie and Theologie. The first, the Malady ..., The Second, +The Remedy</i> (London, 1650).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240-4_42" id="Footnote_240-4_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-4_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240-5_43" id="Footnote_240-5_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240-5_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241-1_44" id="Footnote_241-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See the Introduction to the <i>Advertisement</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241-2_45" id="Footnote_241-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Filmer noted further that the Septuagint translates the Hebrew +word for witch as "an Apothecary, a Druggister, one that compounds +poysons."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241-3_46" id="Footnote_241-3_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241-3_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> London, 1656.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242-1_47" id="Footnote_242-1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242-1_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> In Ady's second edition, <i>A Perfect Discovery of Witches</i> (1661), +134, Gaule's book having meanwhile come into his hands, he speaks of +Gaule as "much inclining to the Truth" and yet swayed by traditions +and the authority of the learned. He adds, "Mr. Gaule, if this work of +mine shall come to your hand, as yours hath come to mine, be not angry +with me for writing God's Truth."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242-2_48" id="Footnote_242-2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242-2_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> "... few men or women being tied hand and feet together can sink +quite away till they be drowned" (<i>Candle in the Dark</i>, 100); "... very +few people in the World are without privie Marks" (<i>Ibid.</i>, 127).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242-3_49" id="Footnote_242-3_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242-3_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242-4_50" id="Footnote_242-4_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242-4_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> In giving "The Reason of the Book" he wrote, "The Grand Errour +of these latter Ages is ascribing power to Witches."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244-1_51" id="Footnote_244-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-1_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> See a recent discussion of a nearly related topic by Professor Elmer +Stoll in the <i>Publications</i> of the Modern Language Association, XXII, +201-233. Of the attitude of the English dramatists before Shakespeare +something may be learned from Mr. L. W. Cushman's <i>The Devil and +the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare</i> (Halle, +1900).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244-2_52" id="Footnote_244-2_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-2_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> About 1622 or soon after.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244-3_53" id="Footnote_244-3_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-3_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> See, for instance, Mr. W. S. Johnson's introduction to his edition +of <i>The Devil is an Ass</i> (New York, 1905).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244-4_54" id="Footnote_244-4_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-4_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> 1634. This play was written, of course, in cooperation with Brome; +see above, pp. 158-160. For other expressions of Heywood's opinions +on witchcraft see his <i>Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels</i>, 598, and his +<ins title="GYNAIKEION">ΓΥΝΑΙΚΕΙΟΝ</ins>: <i>or Nine Books of Various History concerning Women</i> +(London, 1624), lib. viii, 399, 407, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244-5_55" id="Footnote_244-5_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244-5_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Act I, scene 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245-1_56" id="Footnote_245-1_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245-1_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> In another part of the same scene: "They that thinke so dreame," +<i>i. e.</i> they who believe in witchcraft.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245-2_57" id="Footnote_245-2_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245-2_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> First published in 1621—I use, however, Shilleto's ed. of London, +1893, which follows that of 1651-1652; see pt. I, sect. II, memb. I, sub-sect. +3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245-3_58" id="Footnote_245-3_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245-3_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> James Howell, <i>Familiar Letters</i>, II, 548.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245-4_59" id="Footnote_245-4_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245-4_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> His <i>Advice to a Son</i>, first published in 1656-1658, went through +edition after edition. It is very entertaining. His strongly enforced +advice not to marry made a sensation among young Oxford men.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246-1_60" id="Footnote_246-1_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246-1_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Works of Francis Osborne</i> (London, 1673), 551-553.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246-2_61" id="Footnote_246-2_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246-2_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>Works of Bacon</i> (ed. Spedding, London, 1857-1858), II, 642-643.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-1_62" id="Footnote_247-1_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-1_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> "The ointment that witches use is reported to be made of the fat +of children digged out of their graves; of the juices of smallage, wolf-bane, +and cinque-foil, mingled with the meal of fine wheat; but I suppose +that the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it." See <i>Sylva +Sylvarum</i>, cent. X, 975, in <i>Works</i>, ed. Spedding, II, 664. But even this +passage shows Bacon a skeptic. His suggestion that the soporiferous +medicines are likest to do it means that he thinks the delusions of +witches subjective and produced by drugs. For other references to the +subject see <i>Works</i>, II, 658, 660; VII, 738.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-2_63" id="Footnote_247-2_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-2_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>De Argumentis</i>, bk. II, ch. II, in <i>Works</i>, IV, 296; see also <i>ibid.</i>, +III, 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-3_64" id="Footnote_247-3_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-3_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> <i>Advancement of Learning</i>, bk. II; <i>ibid.</i>, III, 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-4_65" id="Footnote_247-4_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-4_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, IV, 400-401.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-5_66" id="Footnote_247-5_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-5_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247-6_67" id="Footnote_247-6_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247-6_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Selden, <i>Table Talk</i> (London, 1689). The book is supposed to have +been written during the last twenty years of Selden's life, that is, +between 1634 and 1654.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248-1_68" id="Footnote_248-1_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-1_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Selden, <i>Table Talk</i>, <i>s. v.</i> "Witches."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248-2_69" id="Footnote_248-2_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-2_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Nor did Selden believe in possessions. See his essay on Devils in +the <i>Table Talk</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248-3_70" id="Footnote_248-3_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-3_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> See article on Hobbes in <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248-4_71" id="Footnote_248-4_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-4_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> See, for example, Bishop Burnet's <i>History of his Own Time</i> (Oxford, +1823), I, 172, 322-323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248-5_72" id="Footnote_248-5_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248-5_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> <i>Leviathan</i> (1651), 7. See also his <i>Dialogue of the Common Laws +of England</i>, in <i>Works</i> (ed. of London, 1750), 626: "But I desire not +to discourse of that subject; for, though without doubt there is some +great Wickedness signified by those Crimes, yet have I ever found myself +too dull to conceive the nature of them, or how the Devil hath power +to do many things which Witches have been accused of." See also +his chapter on Dæmonology in the <i>Leviathan</i>, in <i>Works</i>, 384.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249-1_73" id="Footnote_249-1_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249-1_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> He continues, "Some doe maintaine (but how wisely let the wiser +judge) that all Witchcraft spoken of either by holy writers, or testified by +other writers to have beene among the heathen or in later daies, hath +beene and is no more but either meere Cousinage [he had been reading +Scot], or Collusion, so that in the opinion of those men, the Devill hath +never done, nor can do anything by Witches." <i>The Witches of Northamptonshire, ...</i> A +4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249-2_74" id="Footnote_249-2_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249-2_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Potts, <i>The Wonderfull Discoverie ...</i>, X 4 verso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250-1_75" id="Footnote_250-1_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-1_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Fairfax, <i>A Discourse of Witchcraft</i> (Philobiblon Soc.), 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250-2_76" id="Footnote_250-2_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-2_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250-3_77" id="Footnote_250-3_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-3_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> One notable instance must be mentioned. "H. F.," the narrator +of the Essex affair of 1645 (<i>A true and exact Relation</i>) not only recognized +the strong position of those who doubted, but was by no means +extreme himself. "I doubt not," he wrote, "but these things may +seeme as incredible unto some, as they are matter of admiration unto +others.... The greatest doubt and question will be, whether it be in +the power of the Devil to perform such asportation and locall translation +of the bodies of Witches.... And whether these supernaturall +works, which are above the power of man to do, and proper only to +Spirits, whether they are reall or only imaginary and fained." The +writer concludes that the Devil has power to dispose and transport +bodies, but, as to changing them into animals, he thinks these are +"but jugling transmutations."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250-4_78" id="Footnote_250-4_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250-4_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <i>The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women bewitched +in Yorkshire; ...</i> (1658).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251-1_79" id="Footnote_251-1_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-1_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> "Relation of a Memorable Piece of Witchcraft at Welton near +Daventry," in Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> (London, 1681), pt. +ii, 263-268.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251-2_80" id="Footnote_251-2_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-2_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> See above, pp. 179-180, for an expression about the persecution in +1645.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251-3_81" id="Footnote_251-3_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251-3_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>Mercurius Democritus</i>, February 8-15, 1654.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252-1_82" id="Footnote_252-1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-1_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> 1648. This must be distinguished from <i>The Divels Delusion ...</i>, +1649, (see above, ch. IX, note 8), which deals with two witches executed +at St. Alban's.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252-2_83" id="Footnote_252-2_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-2_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> The truth is that the newspapers, pamphlets, etc., were full of such +stories. And they were believed by many intelligent men. He who runs +through Whitelocke's <i>Memorials</i> may read that the man was exceeding +superstitious. Whether it be the report of the horseman seen in the air +or the stories of witches at Berwick, Whitelocke was equally interested. +While he was merely recording the reports of others, there is not a +sign of skepticism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252-3_84" id="Footnote_252-3_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-3_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> See above, pp. 152-157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252-4_85" id="Footnote_252-4_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252-4_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> See above, pp. 160-162.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Witchcraft under Charles II and James II.</h3> + + +<p>No period of English history saw a wider interest in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> +both the theory and the practice of witchcraft than the +years that followed the Restoration. Throughout the +course of the twenty-eight years that spanned the second +rule of the Stuarts, the Devil manifested himself +in many forms and with unusual frequency. Especially +within the first half of that régime his appearances were +so thrilling in character that the enemies of the new +king might very well have said that the Evil One, like +Charles, had come to his own again. All over the realm +the witches were popping up. If the total number of +trials and of executions did not foot up to the figures +of James I's reign or to those of the Civil War, the +alarm was nevertheless more widely distributed than +ever before. In no less than twenty counties of England +witches were discovered and fetched to court. Up +to this time, so far at any rate as the printed records +show, the southwestern counties had been but little +troubled. Now Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall were +the storm centre of the panic. In the north Yorkshire +began to win for itself the reputation as a centre of activity +that had long been held by Lancashire. Not that +the witch was a new criminal in Yorkshire courts. During +the Civil Wars and the troubled years that followed +the discoverers had been active. But with the reign of +Charles II their zeal increased mightily. Yet, if they +had never before fetched in so many "suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> +parties" to the court of the justice of the peace, they +had never before been so often baffled by the outcome. +Among the many such cases known to us during this +time there is no mention of a conviction.<a name="FNanchor_255-1_1" id="FNanchor_255-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_255-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> In Kent there +was a flickering revival of the old hatred of witches. In +the year that Charles gained the throne the city of Canterbury +sent some women to the gibbet. Not so in Essex. +In that county not a single case during this period +has been left on record. In Middlesex, a county which +from the days of Elizabeth through to the Restoration +had maintained a very even pace—a stray conviction +now and then among many acquittals—the reign of +Charles II saw nothing more serious than some commitments +and releases upon bail. In the Midland counties, +where superstition had flourished in the days of +James I, there were now occasional tales of possession +and vague charges which rarely reached the ears of the +assize judges. Northampton, where an incendiary +witch was sentenced, constituted the single exception. +In East Anglia there was just enough stir to prove that +the days of Matthew Hopkins had not been forgotten.</p> + +<p>It needs no pointing out that a large proportion of the +cases were but a repetition of earlier trials. If a difference +is discernible, it is in the increased number of +accusations that took their start in strange diseases +called possessions. Since the close of the sixteenth +century and the end of John Darrel's activities, the +accounts of possession had fallen off sensibly, but the +last third of the seventeenth century saw a distinct revival +of this tendency to assign certain forms of disease +to the operation of the Devil. We have references +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>to many cases, but only in exceptional instances are the +details given. Oliver Heywood, one of the eminent Dissenters +of northern England, fasted and prayed with +his co-workers over the convulsive and hysterical boys +and girls in the West Riding. Nathan Dodgson was +left after long fastings in "a very sensible melting +frame,"<a name="FNanchor_256-1_2" id="FNanchor_256-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_256-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> but the troubles returned and led, as we shall +see in another connection, to very tragic results. The +Puritan clergymen do not seem, however, to have had +any highly developed method of exorcism or to have +looked upon cases of possession in a light very different +from that in which they would have looked upon ordinary +illnesses.</p> + +<p>Among the Baptists of Yorkshire there was a possession +that roused wide comment. Mary Hall of Little +Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, daughter of a smith, was +possessed in the fall of 1663 with two spirits who were +said to have come to her riding down the chimney upon +a stick. The spirits declared through the girl that Goodwife +Harwood had sent them, and when that suspected +woman was brought into the girl's presence the spirits +cried out, "Oh, Goodwife Harwood, are you come?—that +is well; ... we have endeavored to choak her but +cannot," and, when Mistress Harwood left, the spirits +begged to go with her.<a name="FNanchor_256-2_3" id="FNanchor_256-2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_256-2_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>In Southwark James Barrow, the son of John Barrow, +was long possessed, and neither "doctors, astrolo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>gers, +nor apothecaries" could help him. He was taken +to the Catholics, but to no purpose. Finally he was +cast among a "poor dispirited people whom the Lord +owned as instruments in his hand to do this great +work."<a name="FNanchor_257-1_4" id="FNanchor_257-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-1_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> By the "poor dispirited people" the Baptists +were almost certainly meant.<a name="FNanchor_257-2_5" id="FNanchor_257-2_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-2_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> By their assistance he +seems to have been cured. So also was Hannah Crump +of Warwick, who had been afflicted by witchcraft and +put in a London hospital. Through prayer and fasting +she was entirely recovered.</p> + +<p>Mary Hall had been taken to Doctor Woodhouse of +Berkhampstead, "a man famous for curing bewitched +persons." Woodhouse's name comes up now and again +in the records of his time. He was in fact a very typical +specimen of the witch doctor. When Mary Hall's +case had been submitted to him he had cut off the ends +of her nails and "with somewhat he added" hung them +in the chimney over night before making a diagnosis.<a name="FNanchor_257-3_6" id="FNanchor_257-3_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-3_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +He professed to find stolen goods as well and fell foul +of the courts in one instance, probably because the +woman who consulted him could not pay the shilling +fee.<a name="FNanchor_257-4_7" id="FNanchor_257-4_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_257-4_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> He was arraigned and spent a term in prison. No +doubt many of the witch physicians knew the inside of +prisons and had returned afterwards to successful +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>practice. Redman, "whom some say is a Conjurer, +others say, He is an honest and able phisitian," had +been in prison, but nevertheless he had afterwards +"abundance of Practice" and was much talked about +"in remote parts," all this in spite of the fact that he +was "unlearned in the languages."<a name="FNanchor_258-1_8" id="FNanchor_258-1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_258-1_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>Usually, of course, the witch doctor was a poor +woman who was very happy to get a penny fee now +and then, but who ran a greater risk of the gallows +than her male competitors. Her reputation, which +brought her a little money from the sick and from +those who had lost valuables, made her at the same +time a successful beggar. Those whom she importuned +were afraid to refuse her. But she was in constant +peril. If she resented ill treatment, if she gave in ill +wishes as much as she took, she was sure to hear from +it before a stern justice of the peace. It can hardly be +doubted that a large proportion, after the Restoration +as in every other period, of those finally hanged for +witchcraft, had in fact made claims to skill in magic +arts. Without question some of them had even traded +on the fear they inspired. Not a few of the wretched +creatures fetched to York castle to be tried were "inchanters."</p> + +<p>Very often, indeed, a woman who was nothing more +than a midwife, with some little knowledge of medicine +perhaps, would easily be classed by the public among +the regular witch doctors and so come to have a bad +name. Whether she lived up to her name or not—and +the temptation to do so would be great—she would +from that time be subject to suspicion, and might at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>length become a prey to the justice of the peace. Mrs. +Pepper was no more than a midwife who made also +certain simple medical examinations, but when one of +her patients was "strangely handled" she was taken +to court.<a name="FNanchor_259-1_9" id="FNanchor_259-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_259-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Margaret Stothard was probably, so far as +we can piece together her story, a woman who had +been successful in calming fretful children and had so +gained for herself a reputation as a witch. Doubtless +she had acquired in time a few of the charmer's tricks +that enhanced her reputation and increased her practice. +This was all very well until one of her patients +happened to die. Then she was carried to Newcastle +and would probably have suffered death, had it not +been for a wise judge.<a name="FNanchor_259-2_10" id="FNanchor_259-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_259-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>These are typical cases. The would-be healer of the +sick ran a risk, and it was not always alone from failure +to cure. If a witch doctor found himself unable +to bring relief to a patient, it was easy to suggest that +some other witch doctor—and such were usually +women—was bewitching the patient. There are many +instances, and they are not confined to the particular +period with which we are dealing, in which one "good +witch" started the run on the other's reputation. Even +the regular physician may sometimes have yielded to +the temptation to crush competition.</p> + +<p>Of course, when all the cases are considered, only a +very small part of the "good witches" ever fell into the +clutches of the law. The law prescribed very definite +penalties for their operations, but in most instances no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>action was taken until after a long accumulation of "suspicious +circumstances," and, even if action was taken, +the chances, as we have seen, were by this time distinctly +in favor of the accused.</p> + +<p>This is not to say, by any means, that the judges and +juries of England had come over to the side of the +witch. The period with which we are dealing was +marked by a variety of decision which betrays the perplexity +of judges and juries. It is true, indeed, that +out of from eighty to one hundred cases where accusations +are on record less than twenty witches were +hanged. This does not mean that six times out of +every seven the courts were ruling against the fact of +witchcraft. In the case of the six released there was +no very large body of evidence against them to be considered, +or perhaps no strong popular current to be +stemmed. In general, it may be said that the courts +were still backing up the law of James I.</p> + +<p>To show this, it is only necessary to run over some +of the leading trials of the period. We shall briefly +take up four trials conducted respectively by Justice +Archer, Chief Baron Hale, Justice Rainsford, and Justice +Raymond.</p> + +<p>Julian Cox, who was but one of the "pestilent +brood" of witches ferreted out in Somerset by the aggressive +justice, Robert Hunt, was tried in 1663 at +Taunton before Justice Archer.<a name="FNanchor_260-1_11" id="FNanchor_260-1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_260-1_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The charges against +her indeed excited such interest all over England, and +elicited, upon the part of disbelievers, so much derision, +that it will be worth our while to go over the principal +points of evidence. The chief witness against her was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>a huntsman who told a strange tale. He had started a +hare and chased it behind a bush. But when he came +to the bush he had found Julian Cox there, stooped +over and quite out of breath. Another witness had +a strange story to tell about her. She had invited him +to come up on her porch and take a pipe of tobacco +with her. While he was with her, smoking, he saw +a toad between his legs. On going home he had taken +out a pipe and smoked again and had again seen what +looked to be the same toad between his legs. "He took +the Toad out to kill it, and to his thinking cut it in several +pieces, but returning to his Pipe the Toad still appeared.... +At length the Toad cryed, and vanish'd." +A third witness had seen the accused fly in at her window +"in her full proportion." This tissue of evidence +was perhaps the absurdest ever used against even a +witch, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. It is +not unpleasant to know that Justice Archer met with a +good deal of criticism for his part in the affair.</p> + +<p>In the following year occurred the trials at Bury St. +Edmunds, which derive their interest and importance +largely from the position of the presiding judge, Sir +Matthew Hale, who was at this time chief baron of the +exchequer, and was later to be chief justice of the +king's bench. He was allowed, according to the admission +of one none too friendly to him, "on all hands +to be the most profound lawyer of his time."<a name="FNanchor_261-1_12" id="FNanchor_261-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_261-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Hale +had been a Puritan from his youth, though not of the +rigid or theologically minded sort. In the Civil Wars +and the events that followed he had remained non-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>partisan. +He accepted office from Cromwell, though +without doubt mildly sympathizing with the king. One +of those who had assisted in recalling Charles II, he +rose shortly to be chief baron of the exchequer. Famous +for his careful and reasoned interpretation of law, +he was to leave behind him a high reputation for his justice +and for the exceptional precision of his judgments. +It is not too much to say that he was one of the +greatest legal figures of his century and that his decisions +served in no small degree to fix the law.</p> + +<p>We should like to know how far he had been brought +into contact with the subject of witchcraft, but we can +do no more than guess. His early career had been +moulded in no small degree by Selden, who, as has +been noted in an earlier chapter, believed in the punishment +of those who claimed to be witches. It is not unreasonable +to suppose that the Puritans with whom he +had been thrown were all of them ready to quote +Scripture against the minions of Satan. We know that +he had read some of the works of Henry More,<a name="FNanchor_262-1_13" id="FNanchor_262-1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_262-1_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and, +whether or not familiar with his chapters on witchcraft, +would have deduced from that writer's general philosophy +of spirits the particular application.</p> + +<p>The trial concerned two women of Lowestoft, Amy +Duny and Rose Cullender. The first had been reputed +a witch and a "person of very evil behaviour." She +was in all probability related to some of those women +who had suffered at the hands of Hopkins, and to that +connection owed her ill name. Some six or seven +years before the date of the trial she had got herself +into trouble while taking care of the child of a trades<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>man +in Lowestoft. It would seem that, contrary to the +orders of the mother, she had suckled the child. The +child had that same night been attacked by fits, and a +witch doctor of Yarmouth, who was consulted, had +prescribed for it. The reader will note that this "suspicious +circumstance" happened seven years earlier, +and a large part of the evidence presented in court concerned +what had occurred from five to seven years +before.</p> + +<p>We can not go into the details of a trial which +abounded in curious bits of evidence. The main plot +indeed was an old one. The accused woman, after she +had been discharged from employment and reproved, +had been heard to mutter threats, close upon which the +children of those she cursed, who were now the witnesses +against her, had fallen ill. Two of the children +had suffered severely and were still afflicted. They +had thrown up pins and even a two-penny nail. The +nail, which was duly offered as an exhibit in court, had +been brought to one of the children by a bee and had +been forced into the child's mouth, upon which she expelled +it. This narrative was on a level with the other, +that flies brought crooked pins to the child. Both flies +and bee, it will be understood, were the witches in +other form. A similar sort of evidence was that a +toad, which had been found as the result of the witch +doctor's directions, had been thrown into the fire, upon +which a sharp crackling noise ensued. When this incident +was testified to in the court the judge interrupted +to ask if after the explosion the substance of the +toad was not to be seen in the fire. He was answered +in the negative. On the next day Amy Duny was found +to have her face and body all scorched. She said to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +witness that "she might thank her for it." There can +be no doubt in the world that this testimony of the coincident +burning of the woman and the toad was regarded +as damning proof, nor is there any reason to +believe that the court deemed it necessary to go behind +the mere say-so of a single witness for the fact. +Along with this sort of unsubstantial testimony there +was presented a monotonous mass of spectral evidence. +Apparitions of the witches were the constant occasions +for the paroxysms of the children. In another connection +it will be observed that this form of proof was +becoming increasingly common in the last part of the +seventeenth century. It can hardly be doubted that in +one way or another the use of such evidence at Bury +influenced other trials and more particularly the Salem +cases in the New World, where great importance was +attached to evidence of this sort.</p> + +<p>The usual nauseating evidence as to the Devil's +marks was introduced by the testimony of the mother +of one of the children bewitched. She had been, a +month before, a member of a jury of matrons appointed +by a justice of the peace to examine the body of +the accused. Most damning proof against the woman +had been found. It is very hard for us to understand +why Hale allowed to testify, as one of the jury of examining +matrons, a woman who was at the same time +mother of one of the bewitched children upon whom +the prosecution largely depended.</p> + +<p>So far the case for the prosecution had been very +strong, but it was in the final experiments in court, +which were expected to clinch the evidence, that a very +serious mishap occurred. A bewitched child, eleven +years old, had been fetched into court. With eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> +closed and head reclining upon the bar she had remained +quiet until one of the accused was brought up, +when she at once became frantic in her effort to +scratch her. This was tried again and again and in +every instance produced the same result. The performance +must have had telling effect. But there happened +to be present at the trial three Serjeants of the +law. One of them, Serjeant John Kelyng, a few years +later to become chief justice of the king's bench, was +"much dissatisfied." He urged the point that the mere +fact that the children were bewitched did not establish +their claim to designate the authors of their misfortune. +There were others present who agreed with +Kelyng in suspecting the actions of the girl on the +stand. Baron Hale was induced, at length, to appoint +a committee of several gentlemen, including Serjeant +Kelyng, to make trial of the girl with her eyes covered. +An outside party was brought up to her and touched her +hand. The girl was expecting that Amy Duny would +be brought up and flew into the usual paroxysms. This +was what the committee had expected, and they declared +their belief that the whole transaction was a +mere imposture. One would have supposed that every +one else must come to the same conclusion, but Mr. +Pacy, the girl's father, offered an explanation of her +mistake that seems to have found favor. The maid, +he said, "might be deceived by a suspicion that the +Witch touched her when she did not." One would suppose +that this subtle suggestion would have broken +the spell, and that Mr. Pacy would have been laughed +out of court. Alas for the rarity of humor in seventeenth-century +court rooms! Not only was the explana<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>tion +received seriously, but it was, says the court reporter, +afterwards found to be true.</p> + +<p>In the mean time expert opinion had been called in. +It is hard to say whether Dr. Browne had been requisitioned +for the case or merely happened to be present. +At all events, he was called upon to render his opinion +as a medical man. The name of Thomas Browne is +one eminent in English literature and not unknown in +the annals of English medicine and science. More than +twenty years earlier he had expressed faith in the +reality of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_266-1_14" id="FNanchor_266-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_266-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In his <i>Commonplace Book</i>, a +series of jottings made throughout his life, he reiterated +his belief, but uttered a doubt as to the connection +between possession and witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_266-2_15" id="FNanchor_266-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_266-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>We should be glad to know at what time Browne +wrote this deliverance; for, when called upon at Bury, +he made no application of his principles of caution. He +gave it as his opinion that the bewitchment of the two +girls was genuine. The vomiting of needles and nails +reminded him very much of a recent case in Denmark. +For the moment the physician spoke, when he said that +"these swounding Fits were Natural." But it was the +student of seventeenth-century theology who went on: +they were "heightened to a great excess by the subtilty +of the Devil, co-operating with the Malice of these +which we term Witches, at whose Instance he doth +these Villanies."</p> + +<p>No doubt Browne's words confirmed the sentiment +of the court room and strengthened the case of the +prosecution. But it will not be overlooked by the care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>ful +reader that he did not by any means commit himself +as to the guilt of the parties at the bar.</p> + +<p>When the judge found that the prisoners had "nothing +material" to say for themselves he addressed the +jury. Perhaps because he was not altogether clear in +his own mind about the merits of the case, he refused +to sum up the evidence. It is impossible for us to understand +why he did not carry further the tests which +had convinced Kelyng of the fraud, or why he did not +ask questions which would have uncovered the weakness +of the testimony. One cannot but suspect that +North's criticism of him, that he had a "leaning towards +the Popular" and that he had gained such +"transcendent" authority as not easily to bear contradiction,<a name="FNanchor_267-1_16" id="FNanchor_267-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_267-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +was altogether accurate. At all events he +passed over the evidence and went on to declare that +there were two problems before the jury: (1) were +these children bewitched, (2) were the prisoners at the +bar guilty of it? As to the existence of witches, he +never doubted it. The Scriptures affirmed it, and all +nations provided laws against such persons.</p> + +<p>On the following Sunday Baron Hale composed a +meditation upon the subject. Unfortunately it was +simply a dissertation on Scripture texts and touched +upon the law at no point.</p> + +<p>It is obvious enough to the most casual student that +Sir Matthew Hale had a chance to anticipate the work +of Chief Justice Holt and missed it. In the nineties of the +seventeenth century, as we shall see, there was a man in +the chief justiceship who dared to nullify the law of +James I. It is not too much to say that Matthew Hale +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>by a different charge to the jury could as easily have +made the current of judicial decisions run in favor of +accused witches all over England. His weight was +thrown in the other direction, and the witch-triers for a +half-century to come invoked the name of Hale.<a name="FNanchor_268-1_17" id="FNanchor_268-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_268-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>There is an interesting though hardly trustworthy +story told by Speaker Onslow<a name="FNanchor_268-2_18" id="FNanchor_268-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_268-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>—writing a century +later—that Hale "was afterwards much altered in his +notions as to this matter, and had great concern upon +him for what had befallen these persons." This seems +the more doubtful because there is not a shred of proof +that Hale's decisions occasioned a word of criticism +among his contemporaries.<a name="FNanchor_268-3_19" id="FNanchor_268-3_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_268-3_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> So great, indeed, was the +spell of his name that not even a man like John Webster +dared to comment upon his decision. Not indeed until +nearly the middle of the eighteenth century does anyone +seem to have felt that the decision called for +apology.</p> + +<p>The third noteworthy ruling in this period anent +the crime of witchcraft was made a few years later in +Wiltshire by Justice Rainsford. The story, as he himself +told it to a colleague, was this: "A Witch was +brought to Salisbury and tried before him. Sir James +Long came to his Chamber, and made a heavy Com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>plaint +of this Witch, and said that if she escaped, his +Estate would not be worth any Thing; for all the People +would go away. It happen'd that the Witch was +acquitted, and the Knight continued extremely concern'd; +therefore the Judge, to save the poor Gentleman's +Estate, order'd the Woman to be kept in Gaol, +and that the Town should allow her 2s. 6d. per Week; +for which he was very thankful. The very next Assizes, +he came to the Judge to desire his lordship would +let her come back to the Town. And why? They +could keep her for 1s. 6d. there; and, in the Gaol, she +cost them a shilling more."<a name="FNanchor_269-1_20" id="FNanchor_269-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_269-1_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Another case before Justice +Rainsford showed him less lenient. By a mere +chance we have a letter, written at the time by one of the +justices of the peace in Malmesbury, which sheds no little +light on this affair and on the legal status of witchcraft +at that time.<a name="FNanchor_269-2_21" id="FNanchor_269-2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_269-2_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> A certain Ann Tilling had been +taken into custody on the complaint of Mrs. Webb of +Malmesbury. The latter's son had swooning fits in +which he accused Ann of bewitching him. Ann Tilling +made voluble confession, implicating Elizabeth Peacock +and Judith Witchell, who had, she declared, inveigled +her into the practice of their evil arts. Other +witches were named, and in a short time twelve women +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>and two men were under accusation. But the alderman +of Malmesbury, who was the chief magistrate of +that town, deemed it wise before going further to call +in four of the justices of the peace in that subdivision +of the county. Three of these justices of the peace came +and listened to the confessions, and were about to make +out a mittimus for sending eleven of the accused to +Salisbury, when the fourth justice arrived, the man +who has given us the story. He was, according to his +own account, not "very credulous in matters of Witchcraft," +and he made a speech to the other justices. +"Gentlemen, what is done at this place, a Borough +remote from the centre of this large County, and almost +forty miles from Salisbury, will be expended [<i>sic</i>] +both by the Reverend Judges, the learned Counsayle +there ..., and the Gentry of the body of the County, +so that if anything be done here rashly, it will be severely +censured." He went on to urge the danger that +the boy whose fits were the cause of so much excitement +might be an impostor, and that Ann Tilling, who +had freely confessed, might be in confederacy with the +parents. The skeptical justice, who in spite of his +boasted incredulity was a believer in the reality of +witchcraft, was successful with his colleagues. All +the accused were dismissed save Tilling, Peacock, and +Witchell. They were sent to Salisbury and tried before +Sir Richard Rainsford. Elizabeth Peacock, who +had been tried on similar charges before, was dismissed. +The other two were sentenced to be hanged.<a name="FNanchor_270-1_22" id="FNanchor_270-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_270-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>Ten years later came a fourth remarkable ruling +against witchcraft, this time by Justice Raymond at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>Exeter. During the intervening years there had been +cases a-plenty in England and a few hangings, but none +that had attracted comment. It was not until the summer +of 1682, when three Devonshire women were arraigned, +tried, and sent to the gallows by Justice Raymond,<a name="FNanchor_271-1_23" id="FNanchor_271-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_271-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +that the public again realized that witchcraft +was still upheld by the courts.</p> + +<p>The trials in themselves had no very striking features. +At least two of the three women had been beggars; +the other, who had been the first accused and who +had in all probability involved her two companions, +had on two different occasions before been arraigned +but let off. The evidence submitted against them +consisted of the usual sworn statements made by neighbors +to the justice of the peace, as well as of hardly coherent +confessions by the accused. The repetition of +the Lord's Prayer was gone through with and the results +of examinations by a female jury were detailed +<i>ad nauseam</i>. The poor creatures on trial were remarkably +stupid, even for beings of their grade. Their several +confessions tallied with one another in hardly a +single point.</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas Raymond and Sir Francis North were +the judges present at the Exeter assizes. Happily the +latter has left his impressions of this trial.<a name="FNanchor_271-2_24" id="FNanchor_271-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_271-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> He admits +that witch trials worried him because the evidence was +usually slight, but the people very intent upon a verdict +of guilty. He was very glad that at Exeter his +colleague who sat upon the "crown side" had to bear +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>the responsibilities.<a name="FNanchor_272-1_25" id="FNanchor_272-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_272-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The two women (he seems to have +known of no more) were scarce alive as to sense and +understanding, but were "overwhelm'd with melancholy +and waking Dreams." Barring confessions, the +other evidence he considered trifling, and he cites the +testimony of a witness that "he saw a cat leap in at +her (the old woman's) window, when it was twilight; +and this Informant farther saith that he verily believeth +the said Cat to be the Devil, and more saith not." +Raymond, declares his colleague, made no nice distinctions +as to the possibility of melancholy women +contracting an opinion of themselves that was false, +but left the matter to the jury.<a name="FNanchor_272-2_26" id="FNanchor_272-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_272-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>We have already intimated that the rulings of the +courts were by no means all of them adverse to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>witches. Almost contemporaneous with the far-reaching +sentence of Sir Matthew Hale at Bury were the +trials in Somerset, where flies and nails and needles +played a similar part, but where the outcome was very +different. A zealous justice of the peace, Robert Hunt, +had for the last eight years been on the lookout for +witches. In 1663 he had turned Julian Cox over to the +tender mercies of Justice Archer. By 1664 he had uncovered +a "hellish knot" of the wicked women and +was taking depositions against them, wringing confessions +from them and sending them to gaol with all +possible speed.<a name="FNanchor_273-1_27" id="FNanchor_273-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_273-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The women were of the usual class, +a herd of poor quarrelsome, bickering females who +went from house to house seeking alms. In the numbers +of the accused the discovery resembled that at +Lancaster in 1633-1634, as indeed it did in other ways. +A witch meeting or conventicle was confessed to. The +county was being terrified and entertained by the most +horrible tales, when suddenly a quietus was put upon +the affair "by some of them in authority." A witch +chase, which during the Civil Wars would have led to a +tragedy, was cut short, probably through the agency +of a privy council less fearful of popular sentiment +than the assize judges.</p> + +<p>The Mompesson case<a name="FNanchor_273-2_28" id="FNanchor_273-2_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_273-2_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> was of no less importance in +its time, although it belongs rather in the annals of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>trickery than in those of witchcraft. But the sensation +which it caused in England and the controversy +waged over it between the upholders of witchcraft +and the "Sadducees," give the story a considerable interest +and render the outcome of the trial significant. +The only case of its sort in its time, it was nevertheless +most typical of the superstition of the time. A little +town in Wiltshire had been disturbed by a stray drummer. +The self-constituted noise-maker was called to +account by a stranger in the village, a Mr. Mompesson +of Tedworth, who on examining the man's license saw +that it had been forged and took it away from him. +This, at any rate, was Mr. Mompesson's story as to +how he had incurred the ill will of the man. The +drummer took his revenge in a singular way. Within +a few days the Mompesson family at Tedworth began +to be annoyed at night by strange noises or drummings +on the roofs. All the phenomena and manifestations +which we associate with a modern haunted-house story +were observed by this alarmed family of the seventeenth +century. The little girls were knocked about in +their beds at night, a stout servant was forcibly held +hand and foot, the children's shoes were thrown about, +the chairs glided about the room. It would seem +that all this bold horse-play must soon have been exposed, +but it went on merrily. Whenever any tune was +called for, it was given on the drum. The family +Bible was thrown upside down into the ashes. For +three weeks, however, the spirits ceased operations +during the lying-in of Mrs. Mompesson. But they +sedulously avoided the family servants, especially when +those retainers happened to be armed with swords. +Well they might, for we are told that on one occasion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> +after a pistol shot had been fired at the place where +they were heard, blood was found on the spot. In +another instance, according to Mr. Mompesson's own +account, there were seen figures, "in the shape of +Men, who, as soon as a Gun was discharg'd, would +shuffle away together into an Arbour."</p> + +<p>It is clear enough that a somewhat clumsy fraud +was being imposed upon Mr. Mompesson. A contemporary +writer tells us he was told that it was done by +"two Young Women in the House with a design to +scare thence Mr. Mompesson's Mother."<a name="FNanchor_275-1_29" id="FNanchor_275-1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_275-1_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> From +other sources it is quite certain that the injured drummer +had a hand in the affair. A very similar game had +been played at Woodstock in 1649, and formed a comedy +situation of which Scott makes brilliant use in his +novel of that name. Indeed, it is quite possible that the +drummer, who had been a soldier of Cromwell's, was +inspired by a memory of that affair.</p> + +<p>But there was no one to detect the fraud, as at Woodstock. +Tedworth became a Mecca for those interested +in the supernatural. One of the visitors was Joseph +Glanvill, at this time a young man of twenty-seven, +later to become a member of the Royal Society and +chaplain in ordinary to the king. The spirits were less +noisy; they were always somewhat restrained before +visitors, but scratched on bed sheets and panted in dog +fashion, till Glanvill was thoroughly taken in. For the +rest of his life this psychic experimenter fought a literary +war over this case with those who made fun of it. +While we cannot prove it, we may guess with some +confidence that this episode was the beginning of the +special interest in the supernatural upon Glanvill's +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>part which was later to make him the arch-defender +of the witchcraft superstition in his generation.</p> + +<p>How wide an interest the matter evoked may be +judged from the warm discussions upon it at Cambridge, +and from the royal interest in it which induced +Charles to send down a committee of investigation. +Curiously enough, the spirits were singularly and most +extraordinarily quiet when the royal investigators were +at work, a fact to which delighted skeptics pointed +with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>One wonders that the drummer, who must have +known that his name would be connected with the +affair, failed to realize the risk he was running from +the witch hunters. He was indicted on minor felonies +of another sort, but the charges which Mompesson +brought against him seem to have been passed over. +The man was condemned for stealing and was transported. +With his departure the troubles at Tedworth +ceased. But the drummer, in some way, escaped and +returned to England. The angry Mompesson now +brought him to the assizes as a felon on the strength +of the statute of James I. Unhappily we have no details +of this trial, nor do we know even the name of the +judge; but we do know that the jury gave a verdict of +acquittal.</p> + +<p>In 1671 Cornwall was stirred up over a witch whose +crimes were said to be directed against the state. She +had hindered the English fleet in their war against the +Dutch, she had caused a bull to kill one of the enemies +in Parliament of the Non-Conformists, she had been +responsible for the barrenness of the queen. And for +all these political crimes the chief evidence was that +some cats had been seen playing ("dancing") near her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +house. She was committed, along with several other +women who were accused. Although at the assizes +they were all proved to have had cats and rats about +them, they went free.<a name="FNanchor_277-1_30" id="FNanchor_277-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_277-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>In 1682, the same year in which the three women +of Devonshire had been condemned, there was a trial +at Southwark, just outside of London, which resulted +in a verdict of acquittal. The case had many of the +usual features, but in two points was unique. Joan +Butts was accused of having bewitched a child that +had been taken with fits.<a name="FNanchor_277-2_31" id="FNanchor_277-2_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_277-2_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Nineteen or twenty witnesses +testified against the witch. One of the witnesses +heard her say that, if she had not bewitched the +child, if all the devils in hell could help her, she would +bewitch it. Joan admitted the words, but said that +she had spoken them in passion. She then turned on +one of the witnesses and declared that he had given +himself to the Devil, body and soul. Chief Justice +Pemberton was presiding, and he called her to order +for this attack on a witness, and then catechized her as +to her means of knowing the fact. The woman had +thoughtlessly laid herself open by her own words to +the most serious suspicion. In spite of this, however, +the jury brought her in not guilty, "to the great amazement +of some, ... yet others who consider the great +difficulty in proving a Witch, thought the jury could do +no less than acquit her."</p> + +<p>This was, during the period, the one trial in or near +London of which we have details. There can be no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>doubt that the courts in London and the vicinity were +beginning to ignore cases of witchcraft. After 1670 +there were no more trials of the sort in Middlesex.</p> + +<p>The reader will remember that Justice North had +questioned the equity of Justice Raymond's decision at +Exeter. He has told us the story of a trial at Taunton-Dean, +where he himself had to try a witch.<a name="FNanchor_278-1_32" id="FNanchor_278-1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_278-1_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> A ten-year-old +girl, who was taking strange fits and spitting +out pins, was the witness against an old man whom +she accused of bewitching her. The defendant made +"a Defence as orderly and well expressed as I ever +heard spoke." The judge then asked the justice of the +peace who had committed the man his opinion. He +said that he believed the girl, "doubling herself in her +Fit, as being convulsed, bent her Head down close to +her Stomacher, and with her Mouth, took Pins out of +the Edge of that, and then, righting herself a little, +spit them into some By-stander's Hands." "The Sum +of it was Malice, Threatening, and Circumstances of +Imposture in the Girl." As the judge went downstairs +after the man had been acquitted, "an hideous old +woman" cried to him, "My Lord, Forty Years ago +they would have hang'd me for a Witch, and they could +not; and now they would have hang'd my poor Son."</p> + +<p>The five cases we have cited, while not so celebrated +as those on the other side, were quite as representative +of what was going on in England. It is to be regretted +that we have not the records by which to compute the +acquittals of this period. In a large number of cases +where we have depositions we have no statement of the +outcome. This is particularly true of Yorkshire. As +has been pointed out in the earlier part of the chapter, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>we can be sure that most of these cases were dismissed +or were never brought to trial.</p> + +<p>When we come to the question of the forms of evidence +presented during this period, we have a story +that has been told before. Female juries, convulsive +children or child pretenders, we have met them all +before. Two or three differences may nevertheless be +noted. The use of spectral evidence was becoming increasingly +common. The spectres, as always, assumed +weird forms. Nicholas Rames's wife (at Longwitton, +in the north) saw Elizabeth Fenwick and the Devil +dancing together.<a name="FNanchor_279-1_33" id="FNanchor_279-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_279-1_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> A sick boy in Cornwall saw a +"Woman in a blue Jerkin and Red Petticoat with Yellow +and Green patches," who was quickly identified +and put in hold.<a name="FNanchor_279-2_34" id="FNanchor_279-2_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_279-2_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Sometimes the spectres were more +material. Jane Milburne of Newcastle testified that +Dorothy Stranger, in the form of a cat, had leaped upon +her and held her to the ground for a quarter of an +hour.<a name="FNanchor_279-3_35" id="FNanchor_279-3_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_279-3_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> A "Barber's boy" in Cambridge had escaped +from a spectral woman in the isle of Ely, but she followed +him to Cambridge and killed him with a blow. +"He had the exact mark in his forehead, being dead, +where the Spiritual Woman did hit him alive."<a name="FNanchor_279-4_36" id="FNanchor_279-4_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_279-4_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> It is unnecessary +to multiply cases. The <i>Collection of Modern +Relations</i> is full of the same sort of evidence.</p> + +<p>It has been seen that in nearly every epoch of witch +history the voluntary and involuntary confessions of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>the accused had greatly simplified the difficulties of +prosecution. The witches whom Matthew Hopkins +discovered were too ready to confess to enormous and +unnatural crimes. In this respect there is a marked +change in the period of the later Stuarts. Elizabeth +Style of Somerset in 1663 and the three Devonshire +witches of 1682 were the only ones who made +confessions. Elizabeth Style<a name="FNanchor_280-1_37" id="FNanchor_280-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_280-1_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> had probably been +"watched," in spite of Glanvill's statement to the contrary, +perhaps somewhat in the same torturing way as +the Suffolk witches whom Hopkins "discovered," and +her wild confession showed the effect. The Devonshire +women were half-witted creatures, of the type that had +always been most voluble in confession; but such were +now exceptions.</p> + +<p>This means one of two things. Either the witches +of the Restoration were by some chance a more intelligent +set, or they were showing more spirit than ever +before because they had more supporters and fairer +treatment in court. It is quite possible that both suppositions +have in them some elements of truth. As the +belief in the powers of witches developed in form and +theory, it came to draw within its radius more groups +of people. In its earlier stages the attack upon the +witch had been in part the community's way of ridding +itself of a disreputable member. By the time that +the process of attack had been developed for a century, +it had become less impersonal. Personal hatreds +were now more often the occasion of accusation. Individual +malice was playing a larger rôle. In consequence +those who were accused were more often those +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>who were capable of fighting for themselves or who +had friends to back them. And those friends were +more numerous and zealous because the attitude of +the public and of the courts was more friendly to the +accused witch. This explanation is at best, however, +nothing more than a suggestion. We have not the material +for confident generalization.</p> + +<p>One other form of evidence must be mentioned. The +town of Newcastle, which in 1649 had sent to Scotland +for a witchfinder, was able in 1673 to make use of +home-grown talent. In this instance it was a woman, +Ann Armstrong, who implicated a score of her neighbors +and at length went around pointing out witches. +She was a smooth-witted woman who was probably +taking a shrewd method of turning off charges against +herself. Her testimony dealt with witch gatherings +or conventicles held at various times and places. She +told whom she had seen there and what they had said +about their crimes. She told of their feasts and of their +dances. Poor woman, she had herself been compelled +to sing for them while they danced. Nor was this the +worst. She had been terribly misused. She had been +often turned into a horse, then bridled and ridden.<a name="FNanchor_281-1_38" id="FNanchor_281-1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_281-1_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>It would not be worth while to go further into Ann +Armstrong's stories. It is enough to remark that she +offered details, as to harm done to certain individuals +in certain ways, which tallied closely with the sworn +statements of those individuals as to what had happened +to them at the times specified. The conclusion +cannot be avoided that the female witchfinder had been +at no small pains to get even such minute details in exact +form. She had gathered together all the witch +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>stories of that part of Northumberland and had embodied +them in her account of the confessions made at +the "conventicles."</p> + +<p>What was the ruling of the court on all this evidence +we do not know. We have only one instance in which +any evidence was ruled out. That was at the trial of +Julian Cox in 1663. Justice Archer tried an experiment +in that trial, but before doing so he explained to +the court that no account was to be taken of the result +in making up their verdict. He had heard that a witch +could not repeat the petition in the Lord's Prayer, +"Lead us not into temptation." The witch indeed +failed to meet the test.<a name="FNanchor_282-1_39" id="FNanchor_282-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_282-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>In the course of this period we have two trials that +reveal a connection between witchcraft and other +crimes. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that the +charge of witchcraft was sometimes made when other +crimes were suspected, but could not be proved. The +first case concerned a rich farmer in Northamptonshire +who had gained the ill will of a woman named Ann +Foster. Thirty of his sheep were found dead with +their "Leggs broke in pieces, and their Bones all shattered +in their Skins." A little later his house and barns +were set on fire. Ann Foster was brought to trial for +using witchcraft against him, confessed to it, and was +hanged.<a name="FNanchor_282-2_40" id="FNanchor_282-2_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_282-2_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>The other case was at Brightling in Sussex, not far +from London. There a woman who was suspected as +the one who had told a servant that Joseph Cruther's +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>house would be burned—a prophecy which came true +very shortly—was accused as a witch. She had been +accused years before at the Maidstone assizes, but had +gone free. This time she was "watched" for twenty-four +hours and four ministers kept a fast over the +affair.<a name="FNanchor_283-1_41" id="FNanchor_283-1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_283-1_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>These cases are worth something as an indication that +the charge of witchcraft was still a method of getting +rid of people whom the community feared.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of this chapter the years 1660 to +1688 were marked off as constituting a single epoch in +the history of the superstition. Yet those years +were by no means characterized by the same sort of +court verdicts. The sixties saw a decided increase over +the years of the Commonwealth in the number of trials +and in the number of executions. The seventies witnessed +a rapid dropping off in both figures. Even more +so the eighties. By the close of the eighties the accounts +of witchcraft were exceedingly rare. The decisions +of the courts in the matter were in a state of +fluctuation. Two things were happening. The justices +of the peace were growing much more reluctant +to send accused witches to the assize courts; and the +itinerant judges as a body were, in spite of the decisions +of Hale and Raymond, more careful in witch trials +than ever before, and more likely to withstand public +sentiment.</p> + +<p>The changes of opinion, as reflected in the literature +of the time, especially in the literature of the subject, +will show the same tendencies. We shall take them up +in the next chapter.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255-1_1" id="Footnote_255-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Raine, ed., <i>York Depositions</i> (Surtees Soc.), preface, xxx.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256-1_2" id="Footnote_256-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Joseph Hunter, <i>Life of Heywood</i> (London, 1842), 167, and Heywood's +<i>Diaries</i>, ed. J. H. Turner (Brighouse, 1881-1885), I, 199; III, +100. Heywood, who was one of the leading Dissenters of his time, +must not be credited with extreme superstition. In noting the death of +a boy whom his parents believed bewitched, he wrote, "Oh that they +saw the lords hand." <i>Diary</i>, I, 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256-2_3" id="Footnote_256-2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256-2_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> William Drage, <i>Daimonomageia</i> (London, 1665), 32-38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257-1_4" id="Footnote_257-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-1_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>The Lord's Arm Stretched Out, ... or a True Relation of the wonderful +Deliverance of James Barrow ...</i> (London, 1664).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257-2_5" id="Footnote_257-2_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-2_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Compare Drage, <i>op. cit.</i>, 36, 39, 42, with <i>The Lord's Arm Stretched +Out</i>, 17. Mary Hall, whose cure Drage celebrates, had friends among +the Baptists. Drage seems to connect her case with those of Barrow +and Hannah Crump, both of whom were helped by that "dispirited +people" whom the author of <i>The Lord's Arm Stretched Out</i> exalts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257-3_6" id="Footnote_257-3_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-3_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Drage, <i>op. cit.</i>, 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257-4_7" id="Footnote_257-4_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257-4_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Yorkshire Notes and Queries</i>, I (Bradford, 1885), 26. But a +physician in Winchester Park, whom Hannah Crump had consulted, +had asked five pounds to unbewitch her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258-1_8" id="Footnote_258-1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258-1_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Drage, <i>op. cit.</i>, 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259-1_9" id="Footnote_259-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259-2_10" id="Footnote_259-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See E. Mackenzie, <i>History of Northumberland</i> (Newcastle, 1825), +II, 33-36. We do not know that the woman was excused, but the case +was before Henry Ogle and we may fairly guess the outcome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260-1_11" id="Footnote_260-1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260-1_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 191-209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261-1_12" id="Footnote_261-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> This is the estimate of him by North, who adds: "and he knew it." +Roger North, <i>Life of the Rt. Hon. Francis North, Baron of Guilford ...</i> +(London, 1742), 62-63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262-1_13" id="Footnote_262-1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262-1_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington</i>, II, pt. I +(Chetham Soc., no. 36, 1855), 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266-1_14" id="Footnote_266-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> In his <i>Religio Medici</i>. See <i>Sir Thomas Browne's Works</i> (ed. S. +Wilkin, London, 1851-1852), II, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266-2_15" id="Footnote_266-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 389.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267-1_16" id="Footnote_267-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Roger North, <i>op. cit.</i>, 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268-1_17" id="Footnote_268-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Inderwick has given a good illustration of Hale's weakness of +character: "I confess," he says, "to a feeling of pain at finding him in +October, 1660, sitting as a judge at the Old Bailey, trying and condemning +to death batches of the regicides, men under whose orders he +had himself acted, who had been his colleagues in parliament, with +whom he had sat on committees to alter the law." <i>Interregnum</i>, 217-218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268-2_18" id="Footnote_268-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIV, 9, p. 480.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268-3_19" id="Footnote_268-3_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268-3_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Bishop Burnet, in his <i>Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale</i> (London, +1682), does not seem to have felt called upon to mention the Bury +trial at all. See also Lord Campbell, <i>Lives of the Chief Justices</i> (London, +1849), I, 563-567.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269-1_20" id="Footnote_269-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269-1_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Roger North, <i>op. cit.</i>, 130, 131. The story, as here told, ascribes +the event to the year preceding Lord Guilford's first western circuit—<i>i. e.</i>, +to 1674. But this perhaps need not be taken too exactly, and the +witch was probably that Elizabeth Peacock who was acquitted in 1670 +and again in the case of 1672 described above. At least the list of +"Indictments for witchcraft on the Western Circuit from 1670 to 1712," +published by Inderwick in his <i>Sidelights on the Stuarts</i> (London, 1888), +shows no other acquittal in Wiltshire during this decade.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269-2_21" id="Footnote_269-2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269-2_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> For this letter see the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. I, 405-410, +489-402. The story is confirmed in part by Inderwick's finds in the +western Gaol Delivery records. As to the trustworthiness of this unknown +justice of the peace, see above, pp. 160, 162, and notes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270-1_22" id="Footnote_270-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> That the judge was Sir Richard Rainsford appears from Inderwick's +list, mentioned above, note 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271-1_23" id="Footnote_271-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against ... +Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards</i> (London, +1682). And <i>The Tryal, Condemnation and Execution of Three Witches ...</i> +(London, 1682). See also below, note 26, and appendix A, § 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271-2_24" id="Footnote_271-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Roger North, <i>op. cit.</i>, 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272-1_25" id="Footnote_272-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> At a trial at the York assizes in 1687 Sir John Reresby seems to +have played about the same part that North played at Exeter. Serjeant +Powell, later to be chief justice, was presiding over the case. "An +old woman was condemned for a witch. Those who were more credulous +in points of this nature than myself, conceived the evidence to be very +strong against her. The boy she was said to have bewitched fell +down on a sudden before all the court when he saw her, and would +then as suddenly return to himself again, and very distinctly relate +the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed +the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the +mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; +so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her." +<i>Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby</i> (London, 1813), 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272-2_26" id="Footnote_272-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> There is indeed some evidence that Raymond wished not to condemn +the women, but yielded nevertheless to public opinion. In a pamphlet +published five years later it is stated that the judge "in his charge +to the jury gave his Opinion that these three poor Women (as he supposed) +were weary of their Lives, and that he thought it proper for +them to be carryed to the Parish from whence they came, and that the +Parish should be charged with their Maintainance; for he thought their +oppressing Poverty had constrained them to wish for Death." Unhappily +the neighbors made such an outcry that the women were found +guilty and sentenced. This is from a later and somewhat untrustworthy +account, but it fits in well with what North says of the case. +<i>The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary Lloyd</i> [sic], +<i>and Susanna Edwards: ...</i> (London, 1687).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273-1_27" id="Footnote_273-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The second part of Glanvill's <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> is full of +these depositions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273-2_28" id="Footnote_273-2_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273-2_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> For a full account of this affair see Glanvill's <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, +pt. ii, preface and Relation I. Glanvill had investigated the +matter and had diligently collected all the evidence. He was familiar +also with what the "deriders" had to say, and we can discover their +point of view from his answers. See also John Beaumont, <i>An Historical, +Physiological and Theological Treatise of Spirits, Apparitions, +Witchcrafts, and other Magical Practices</i> (London, 1705), 307-309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275-1_29" id="Footnote_275-1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275-1_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277-1_30" id="Footnote_277-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1671</i>, 105, 171.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277-2_31" id="Footnote_277-2_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277-2_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> We have two accounts of this affair: <i>Strange and Wonderful News +from Yowell in Surry</i> (1681), and <i>An Account of the Tryal and Examination +of Joan Buts</i> (1682).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278-1_32" id="Footnote_278-1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278-1_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Roger North, <i>op. cit.</i>, 131-132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279-1_33" id="Footnote_279-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279-1_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 247.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279-2_34" id="Footnote_279-2_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279-2_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>A True Account ... of one John Tonken, of Pensans in Cornwall +...</i> (1686). For other examples of spectral evidence see <i>York Depositions</i>, +88; Roberts, <i>Southern Counties</i> (London, 1856), 525-526; <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. II, 489.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279-3_35" id="Footnote_279-3_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279-3_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 112, 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279-4_36" id="Footnote_279-4_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279-4_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Drage, <i>Daimonomageia</i>, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280-1_37" id="Footnote_280-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280-1_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> For an account of her case, see Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, +pt. ii, 127-146.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281-1_38" id="Footnote_281-1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281-1_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>York Depositions</i>, 191-201.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282-1_39" id="Footnote_282-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> For a complete account of the Julian Cox case see Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus +Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 191-209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282-2_40" id="Footnote_282-2_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282-2_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>A Full and True Relation of the Tryal ... of Ann Foster ...</i> (London, +1674).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283-1_41" id="Footnote_283-1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283-1_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Sussex Archaeological Collections</i>, XVIII, 111-113.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">Glanvill and Webster and the Literary War over +Witchcraft, 1660-1688.</h3> + + +<p>In an earlier chapter we followed the progress of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> +opinion from James I to the Restoration. We saw +that in the course of little more than a half-century +the centre of the controversy had been considerably +shifted: we noted that there was a growing body of +intelligent men who discredited the stories of witchcraft +and were even inclined to laugh at them. It is +now our purpose to go on with the history of opinion +from the point at which we left off to the revolution +of 1688. We shall discover that the body of literature +on the subject was enormously increased. We shall +see that a larger and more representative group of men +were expressing themselves on the matter. The controversialists +were no longer bushwhackers, but crafty +warriors who joined battle after looking over the field +and measuring their forces. The groundworks of philosophy +were tested, the bases of religious faith examined. +The days of skirmishing about the ordeal +of water and the test of the Devil's marks were gone +by. The combatants were now to fight over the reality +or unreality of supernatural phenomena. We shall +observe that the battle was less one-sided than ever +before and that the assailants of superstition, who up +to this time had been outnumbered, now fought on at +least even terms with their enemies. We shall see too +that the non-participants and onlookers were more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> +ready than ever before to join themselves to the party +of attack.</p> + +<p>The struggle was indeed a miniature war and in the +main was fought very fairly. But it was natural that +those who disbelieved should resort to ridicule. It was +a form of attack to which their opponents exposed +themselves by their faith in the utterly absurd stories +of silly women. Cervantes with his Don Quixote +laughed chivalry out of Europe, and there was a class +in society that would willingly have laughed witchcraft +out of England. Their onslaught was one most +difficult to repel. Nevertheless the defenders of witchcraft +met the challenge squarely. With unwearying +patience and absolute confidence in their cause they +collected the testimonies for their narratives and then +said to those who laughed: Here are the facts; what +are you going to do about them?</p> + +<p>The last chapter told of the alarms in Somerset and +in Wilts and showed what a stir they produced in England. +In connection with those affairs was mentioned +the name of that brave researcher, Mr. Glanvill. The +history of the witch literature of this period is little +more than an account of Joseph Glanvill, of his opinions, +of his controversies, of his disciples and his opponents. +It is not too much to say that in Glanvill the +superstition found its ablest advocate. In acuteness +of logical distinction, in the cleverness and brilliance +of his intellectual sword-play, he excelled all +others before and after who sought to defend the belief +in witchcraft. He was a man entitled to speak with +some authority. A member of Exeter College at Oxford, +he had been in 1664 elected a fellow of the recently +founded Royal Society and was in sympathy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +with its point of view. At the same time he was a philosopher +of no small influence in his generation.</p> + +<p>His intellectual position is not difficult to determine. +He was an opponent of the Oxford scholasticism and +inclined towards a school of thought represented by +Robert Fludd, the two Vaughans, Henry More, and +Van Helmont,<a name="FNanchor_286-1_1" id="FNanchor_286-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_286-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> men who had drunk deeply of the cabalistic +writers, disciples of Paracelsus and Pico della +Mirandola. It would be foolhardy indeed for a layman +to attempt an elucidation of the subtleties either of this +philosophy or of the processes of Glanvill's philosophical +reasoning. His point of view was partially unfolded +in the <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i>, published in 1665<a name="FNanchor_286-2_2" id="FNanchor_286-2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_286-2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and +dedicated to the Royal Society. In this treatise he +pointed out our present ignorance of phenomena and +our inability to determine their real character, owing +to the subjectivity of our perceptions of them, and +insisted consequently upon the danger of dogmatism. +He himself had drawn but a cockle-shell of water +from the ocean of knowledge. His notion of spirit—if +his works on witchcraft may be trusted—seems to +have been that it is a light and invisible form of matter +capable of detachment from or infusion into more +solid substances—precisely the idea of Henry More. +Religiously, it would not be far wrong to call him a +reconstructionist—to use a much abused and exceedingly +modern term. He did not, indeed, admit the existence +of any gap between religion and science that +needed bridging over, but the trend of his teaching, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>though he would hardly have admitted it, was to show +that the mysteries of revealed religion belong in the +field of unexplored science.<a name="FNanchor_287-1_3" id="FNanchor_287-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_287-1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It was his confidence in +the far possibilities opened by investigation in that field, +together with the cabalistic notions he had absorbed, +which rendered him so willing to become a student of +psychical phenomena.</p> + +<p>Little wonder, then, that he found the Mompesson +and Somerset cases material to his hand and that he +seized upon them eagerly as irrefutable proof of demoniacal +agency. His first task, indeed, was to prove +the alleged facts; these once established, they could be +readily fitted into a comprehensive scheme of reasoning. +In 1666 he issued a small volume, <i>Some Philosophical +Considerations touching Witches and Witchcraft</i>. +Most of the first edition was burned in the fire of London, +but the book was reprinted. Already by 1668 it +had reached a fourth impression.<a name="FNanchor_287-2_4" id="FNanchor_287-2_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_287-2_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> In this edition the +work took the new title <i>A Blow at Modern Sadducism</i>, +and it was republished again in 1681 with further additions +as <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, which might be +translated "Unbelief Conquered."<a name="FNanchor_287-3_5" id="FNanchor_287-3_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_287-3_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> The work continued +to be called for faster than the publisher could +supply the demand, and went through several more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>revisions and reimpressions. One of the most popular +books of the generation, it proved to be Glanvill's greatest +title to contemporary fame. The success of the +work was no doubt due in large measure to the collection +of witch stories; but these had been inserted by the +author as the groundwork of his argument. He recognized, +as no one on his side of the controversy had done +before, the force of the arguments made by the opposition. +They were good points, but to them all he offered +one short answer—the evidence of proved fact.<a name="FNanchor_288-1_6" id="FNanchor_288-1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-1_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +That such transformations as were ascribed to the +witches were ridiculous, that contracts between the +Devil and agents who were already under his control +were absurd, that the Devil would never put himself +at the nod and beck of miserable women, and that +Providence would not permit His children to be thus +buffeted by the evil one: these were the current objections;<a name="FNanchor_288-2_7" id="FNanchor_288-2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-2_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +and to them all Glanvill replied that one positive +fact is worth a thousand negative arguments. Innumerable +frauds had been exposed. Yes, he knew it,<a name="FNanchor_288-3_8" id="FNanchor_288-3_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_288-3_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +but here were well authenticated cases that were not +fraud. Glanvill put the issue squarely. His confidence +in his case at once wins admiration. He was thoroughly +sincere. The fly in the ointment was of course +that his best authenticated cases could not stand any +careful criticism. He had been furnished the narratives +which he used by "honest and honourable +friends." Yet, if this scientific investigator could be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>duped, as he had been at Tedworth, much more those +worthy but credulous friends whom he quoted.</p> + +<p>From a simple assertion that he was presenting facts +Glanvill went on to make a plea used often nowadays +in another connection by defenders of miracles. If the +ordinary mind, he said, could not understand "every +thing done by Mathematics and Mechanical Artifice,"<a name="FNanchor_289-1_9" id="FNanchor_289-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_289-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +how much more would even the most knowing of us +fail to understand the power of witches. This proposition, +the reader can see, was nothing more than a +working out of one of the principles of his philosophy. +There can be no doubt that he would have taken the +same ground about miracles,<a name="FNanchor_289-2_10" id="FNanchor_289-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_289-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> a position that must +have alarmed many of his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>In spite of his emphasis of fact, Glanvill was as ready +as any to enter into a theological disquisition. Into +those rarefied regions of thought we shall not follow +him. It will perhaps not be out of order, however, +to note two or three points that were thoroughly typical +of his reasoning. To the contention that, if a wicked +spirit could work harm by the use of a witch, it should +be able to do so without any intermediary and so to +harass all of mankind all of the time, he answered that +the designs of demons are levelled at the soul and +can in consequence best be carried on in secret.<a name="FNanchor_289-3_11" id="FNanchor_289-3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_289-3_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> To +the argument that when one considers the "vileness of +men" one would expect that the evil spirits would practise +their arts not on a few but on a great many, he +replied that men are not liable to be troubled by them +till they have forfeited the "tutelary care and oversight +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>of the better spirits," and, furthermore, spirits find it +difficult to assume such shapes as are necessary for +"their Correspondencie with Witches." It is a hard +thing for spirits "to force their thin and tenuious +bodies into a visible consistence.... For, in this Action, +their Bodies must needs be exceedingly compress'd."<a name="FNanchor_290-1_12" id="FNanchor_290-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_290-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> +To the objection that the belief in evil beings makes it +plausible that the miracles of the Bible were wrought +by the agency of devils,<a name="FNanchor_290-2_13" id="FNanchor_290-2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_290-2_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> he replied that the miracles +of the Gospel are notoriously contrary to the tendency, +aims, and interests of the kingdom of darkness.<a name="FNanchor_290-3_14" id="FNanchor_290-3_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_290-3_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The +suggestion that witches would not renounce eternal +happiness for short and trivial pleasures here,<a name="FNanchor_290-4_15" id="FNanchor_290-4_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_290-4_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> he silenced +by saying that "Mankind acts sometimes to prodigious +degrees of brutishness."</p> + +<p>It is needless to go further in quoting his arguments. +Doubtless both questions and answers seem quibbles +to the present-day reader, but the force of Glanvill's +replies from the point of view of his contemporaries +must not be underestimated. He was indeed the first +defender of witchcraft who in any reasoned manner +tried to clear up the problems proposed by the opposition. +His answers were without question the best that +could be given.</p> + +<p>It is easy for us to forget the theological background +of seventeenth-century English thought. Given a personal +Devil who is constantly intriguing against the +kingdom of God (and who would then have dared to +deny such a premise?), grant that the Devil has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>supernatural powers (and there were Scripture texts +to prove it), and it was but a short step to the +belief in witches. The truth is that Glanvill's +theories were much more firmly grounded on the bedrock +of seventeenth-century theology than those of his +opponents. His opponents were attempting to use +common sense, but it was a sort of common sense +which, however little they saw it, must undermine the +current religious convictions.</p> + +<p>Glanvill was indeed exceedingly up-to-date in his +own time. Not but that he had read the learned old +authors. He was familiar with what "the great Episcopius" +had to say, he had dipped into Reginald Scot +and deemed him too "ridiculous" to answer.<a name="FNanchor_291-1_16" id="FNanchor_291-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_291-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> But he +cared far more about the arguments that he heard advanced +in every-day conversation. These were the +arguments that he attempted to answer. His work reflected +the current discussions of the subject. It was, +indeed, the growing opposition among those whom he +met that stirred him most. Not without sadness he +recognized that "most of the looser Gentry and small +pretenders to Philosophy and Wit are generally deriders +of the belief of Witches and Apparitions."<a name="FNanchor_291-2_17" id="FNanchor_291-2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_291-2_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> +Like an animal at bay, he turned fiercely on them. +"Let them enjoy the Opinion of their own Superlative +Judgements" and run madly after Scot, Hobbes, and +Osborne. It was, in truth, a danger to religion that he +was trying to ward off. One of the fundamentals of +religion was at stake. The denial of witchcraft was a +phase of prevalent atheism. Those that give up the +belief in witches, give up that in the Devil, then that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>in the immortality of the soul.<a name="FNanchor_292-1_18" id="FNanchor_292-1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_292-1_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The question at issue +was the reality of the spirit world.</p> + +<p>It can be seen why the man was tremendously in +earnest. One may indeed wonder if his intensity of +feeling on the matter was not responsible for his accepting +as <i>bona fide</i> narratives those which his common +sense should have made him reject. In defending +the authenticity of the remarkable stories told by the +accusers of Julian Cox,<a name="FNanchor_292-2_19" id="FNanchor_292-2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_292-2_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> he was guilty of a degree of +credulity that passes belief. Perhaps the reader will +recall the incident of the hunted rabbit that vanished +behind a bush and was transformed into a panting +woman, no other than the accused Julian Cox. This +tale must indeed have strained Glanvill's utmost capacity +of belief. Yet he rose bravely to the occasion. +Determined not to give up any well-supported fact, he +urged that probably the Devil had sent a spirit to take +the apparent form of the hare while he had hurried +the woman to the bush and had presumably kept her +invisible until she was found by the boy. It was the +Nemesis of a bad cause that its greatest defender +should have let himself indulge in such absurdities.</p> + +<p>In truth we may be permitted to wonder if the philosopher +was altogether true to his own position. In +his <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i> he had talked hopefully about the +possibility that science might explain what as yet +seemed supernatural.<a name="FNanchor_292-3_20" id="FNanchor_292-3_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_292-3_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> This came perilously near to +saying that the realms of the supernatural, when explored, +would turn out to be natural and subject to +natural law. If this were true, what would become of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>all those bulwarks of religion furnished by the wonders +of witchcraft? It looks very much as if Glanvill had +let an inconsistency creep into his philosophy.</p> + +<p>It was two years after Glanvill's first venture that +Meric Casaubon issued his work entitled <i>Of Credulity +and Incredulity in Things Natural, Civil, and Divine</i>.<a name="FNanchor_293-1_21" id="FNanchor_293-1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_293-1_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +On account of illness, however, as he tells the reader in +his preface, he had been unable to complete the book, +and it dealt only with "Things Natural" and "Things +Civil." "Things Divine" became the theme of a +separate volume, which appeared in 1670 under the +title <i>Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine +and Spiritual: wherein ... the business of Witches and +Witchcraft, against a late Writer, [is] fully Argued +and Disputed</i>. The interest of this scholar in the subject +of witchcraft was, as we have seen, by no means +recent. When a young rector in Somerset he had attended +a trial of witches, quite possibly the identical +trial that had moved Bernard to appeal to grand jurymen. +We have noted in an earlier chapter<a name="FNanchor_293-2_22" id="FNanchor_293-2_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_293-2_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> that Casaubon +in 1654, writing on <i>Enthusiasm</i>, had touched +lightly upon the subject. It will be recalled that he had +come very near to questioning the value of confessions. +Five years later, in prefacing a <i>Relation of what passed +between Dr. Dee and some Spirits</i>, he had anticipated +the conclusions of his <i>Credulity and Incredulity</i>. Those +conclusions were mainly in accord with Glanvill. With +a good will he admitted that the denying of witches +was a "very plausible cause." Nothing was more liable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>to be fraud than the exhibitions given at trials, nothing +less trustworthy than the accounts of what witches +had done. Too many cases originated in the ignorance +of ministers who were on the look-out "in every wild +notion or phansie" for a "suggestion of the Devil."<a name="FNanchor_294-1_23" id="FNanchor_294-1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_294-1_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +But, like Glanvill, and indeed like the spiritualists of +to-day, he insisted that many cases of fraud do not +establish a negative. There is a very large body of narratives +so authentic that to doubt them would be evidence +of infidelity. Casaubon rarely doubted, although +he sought to keep the doubting spirit. It was hard for +him not to believe what he had read or had been told. +He was naturally credulous, particularly when he read +the stories of the classical writers. For this attitude +of mind he was hardly to be censured. Criticism was +but beginning to be applied to the tales of Roman and +Greek writers. Their works were full of stories of +magic and enchantment, and it was not easy for a seventeenth-century +student to shake himself free from +their authority. Nor would Casaubon have wished to +do so. He belonged to the past both by religion and +raining, and he must be reckoned among the upholders +of superstition.<a name="FNanchor_294-2_24" id="FNanchor_294-2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_294-2_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>In the next year, 1669, John Wagstaffe, a graduate +of Oriel College who had applied himself to "the study +of learning and politics," issued a little book, <i>The Question +of Witchcraft Debated</i>. Wagstaffe was a university +man of no reputation. "A little crooked man and +of a despicable presence," he was dubbed by the Ox<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>ford +wags the little wizard.<a name="FNanchor_295-1_25" id="FNanchor_295-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Nevertheless he had +something to say and he gained no small hearing. Many +of his arguments were purely theological and need +not be repeated. But he made two good points. The +notions about witches find their origin in "heathen +fables." This was an undercutting blow at those who +insisted on the belief in witchcraft as an essential of +Christian faith; and Wagstaffe, moreover, made good +his case. His second argument was one which no less +needed to be emphasized. Coincidence, he believed, +accounts for a great deal of the inexplicable in witchcraft +narratives.<a name="FNanchor_295-2_26" id="FNanchor_295-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>Within two years the book appeared again, much enlarged, +and it was later translated into German. It +was answered by two men—by Casaubon in the second +part of his Credulity<a name="FNanchor_295-3_27" id="FNanchor_295-3_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-3_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and by an author who signed +himself "R. T."<a name="FNanchor_295-4_28" id="FNanchor_295-4_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-4_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Casaubon added nothing new, nor +did "R. T.," who threshed over old theological straw. +The same can hardly be said of Lodowick Muggleton, +a seventeenth-century Dowie who would fain have been +a prophet of a new dispensation. He put out an exposition +of the Witch of Endor that was entirely rationalistic.<a name="FNanchor_295-5_29" id="FNanchor_295-5_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_295-5_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +Witches, he maintained, had no spirits but +their own wicked imaginations. Saul was simply the +dupe of a woman pretender.</p> + +<p>An antidote to this serious literature may be mentioned +in passing. There was published at London, in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>1673,<a name="FNanchor_296-1_30" id="FNanchor_296-1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-1_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> <i>A Pleasant Treatise of Witches</i>, in which a delightful +prospect was opened to the reader: "You shall +find nothing here of those Vulgar, Fabulous, and Idle +Tales that are not worth the lending an ear to, nor of +those hideous Sawcer-eyed and Cloven-Footed Divels, +that Grandmas affright their children withal, but only +the pleasant and well grounded discourses of the +Learned as an object adequate to thy wise understanding." +An outline was offered, but it was nothing +more than a thread upon which to hang good stories. +They were tales of a distant past. There were witches +once, of course there were, but that was in the good old +days. Such was the author's implication.</p> + +<p>Alas that such light treatment was so rare! The subject +was, in the minds of most, not one for laughter. It +called for serious consideration. That point of view +came to its own again in <i>The Doctrine of Devils proved +to be the grand apostacy of these later Times</i>.<a name="FNanchor_296-2_31" id="FNanchor_296-2_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-2_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The +Dutch translator of this book tells us that it was +written by a New England clergyman.<a name="FNanchor_296-3_32" id="FNanchor_296-3_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-3_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> If that be +true, the writer must have been one of the least provincial +New Englanders of his century, for he evinces a +remarkable knowledge of the witch alarms and witch +discussions in England. Some of his opinions betray +the influence of Scot, as for instance his interpretation +of Christ's casting out of devils.<a name="FNanchor_296-4_33" id="FNanchor_296-4_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_296-4_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> The term "having a +devil" was but a phrase for one distracted. The author +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>made, however, some new points. He believed that the +importance of the New Testament miracles would be +overshadowed by the greater miracles wrought by the +Devil.<a name="FNanchor_297-1_34" id="FNanchor_297-1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-1_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> A more telling argument, at least to a modern +reader, was that the solidarity of society would be endangered +by a belief that made every man afraid of +his neighbor.<a name="FNanchor_297-2_35" id="FNanchor_297-2_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-2_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> The writer commends Wagstaffe's +work, and writes of Casaubon, "If any one could possibly +have bewitcht me into the Belief of Witchcraft, +this reverend person, of all others, was most like to have +done it." He decries the "proletarian Rabble," and +"the great Philosophers" (More and Glanvill, doubtless), +who call themselves Christians and yet hold "an +Opinion that Butchers up Men and Women without +Fear or Witt, Sense or Reason, Care or Conscience, by +droves;" but he praises "the reverend judges of England, +now ... much wiser than before," who "give +small or no encouragement to such accusations."</p> + +<p>We come now to the second great figure among the +witch-ologists of the Restoration, John Webster. Glanvill +and Webster were protagonist and antagonist in +a drama where the others played somewhat the rôle +of the Greek chorus. It was in 1677 that Webster put +forth <i>The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>.<a name="FNanchor_297-3_36" id="FNanchor_297-3_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_297-3_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> A +Non-Conformist clergyman in his earlier life, he seems +to have turned in later years to the practice of medicine. +From young manhood he had been interested in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>the subject of witchcraft. Probably that interest dates +from an experience of his one Sunday afternoon over +forty years before he published his book. It will be recalled +that the boy Robinson, accuser of the Lancashire +women in 1634, had been brought into his Yorkshire +congregation at an afternoon service and had come +off very poorly when cross-questioned by the curious +minister. From that time Webster had been a +doubter. Now and again in the course of his Yorkshire +and Lancashire pastorates he had come into contact +with superstition. He was no philosopher, this Yorkshire +doctor of souls and bodies, nor was he more than a +country scientist, and his reasoning against witchcraft +fell short—as Professor Kittredge has clearly pointed +out<a name="FNanchor_298-1_37" id="FNanchor_298-1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_298-1_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>—of scientific rationalism. That was a high mark +and few there were in the seventeenth century who +attained unto it. But it is not too much to say that +John Webster was the heir and successor to Scot. He +carried weight by the force of his attack, if not by its +brilliancy.<a name="FNanchor_298-2_38" id="FNanchor_298-2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_298-2_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> He was by no means always consistent, +but he struck sturdy blows. He was seldom original, +but he felled his opponents.</p> + +<p>Many of his strongest arguments, of course, were +old. It was nothing new that the Witch of Endor was +an impostor. It was Muggleton's notion, and it went +back indeed to Scot. The emphasizing of the part +played by imagination was as old as the oldest English +opponent of witch persecution. The explanation of +certain strange phenomena as ventriloquism—a matter +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>that Webster had investigated painstakingly—this had +been urged before. Webster himself did not believe +that new arguments were needed. He had felt that the +"impious and Popish opinions of the too much magnified +powers of Demons and Witches, in this Nation +were pretty well quashed and silenced" by various +writers and by the "grave proceedings of many +learned judges." But it was when he found that two +"beneficed Ministers," Casaubon and Glanvill, had +"afresh espoused so bad a cause" that he had been +impelled to review their grounds.</p> + +<p>As the reader may already have guessed, Webster, +like so many of his predecessors, dealt largely in theological +and scriptural arguments. It was along this +line, indeed, that he made his most important contribution +to the controversy then going on. Glanvill had +urged that disbelief in witchcraft was but one step in +the path to atheism. No witches, no spirits, no immortality, +no God, were the sequences of Glanvill's reasoning. +In answer Webster urged that the denial of the +existence of witches—<i>i. e.</i>, of creatures endued with +power from the Devil to perform supernatural wonders—had +nothing to do with the existence of angels +or spirits. We must rely upon other grounds for a belief +in the spirit world. Stories of apparitions are no +proof, because we cannot be sure that those apparitions +are made or caused by spirits. We have no certain +ground for believing in a spirit world but the testimony +of Scripture.<a name="FNanchor_299-1_39" id="FNanchor_299-1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_299-1_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>But if we grant the existence of spirits—to modernize +the form of Webster's argument—we do not there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>by +prove the existence of witches. The New Testament +tells of various sorts of "deceiving Imposters, +Diviners, or Witches," but amongst them all "there +were none that had made a visible league with the +Devil." There was no mention of transformation into +cats, dogs, or wolves.<a name="FNanchor_300-1_40" id="FNanchor_300-1_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_300-1_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> It is hard to see how the most +literal students of the Scriptures could have evaded +this argument. The Scriptures said a great deal about +the Devil, about demoniacs, and about witches and +magicians—whatever they might mean by those terms. +Why did they not speak at all of the compacts between +the Devil and witches? Why did they leave out the +very essential of the witch-monger's lore?</p> + +<p>All this needed to be urged at a time when the +advocates of witchcraft were crying "Wolf! wolf!" +to the Christian people of England. In other words, +Webster was rendering it possible for the purely orthodox +to give up what Glanvill had called a bulwark +of religion and still to cling to their orthodoxy.</p> + +<p>It is much to the credit of Webster that he spoke +out plainly concerning the obscenity of what was extorted +from the witches. No one who has not read for +himself can have any notion of the vile character of the +charges and confessions embodied in the witch pamphlets. +It is an aspect of the question which has not been +discussed in these pages. Webster states the facts without +exaggeration:<a name="FNanchor_300-2_41" id="FNanchor_300-2_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_300-2_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> "For the most of them are not +credible, by reason of their obscenity and filthiness; +for chast ears would tingle to hear such bawdy and +immodest lyes; and what pure and sober minds would +not nauseate and startle to understand such unclean +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>stories ...? Surely even the impurity of it may be +sufficient to overthrow the credibility of it, especially +among Christians." Professor Burr has said that "it +was, indeed, no small part of the evil of the matter, +that it so long debauched the imagination of Christendom."<a name="FNanchor_301-1_42" id="FNanchor_301-1_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_301-1_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>We have said that Webster denied the existence of +witches, that is, of those who performed supernatural +deeds. But, like Scot, he explicitly refrained from +denying the existence of witches <i>in toto</i>. He was, +in fact, much more satisfactory than Scot; for he explained +just what was his residuum of belief. He believed +that witches were evil-minded creatures inspired +by the Devil, who by the use of poisons and natural +means unknown to most men harmed and killed their +fellow-beings.<a name="FNanchor_301-2_43" id="FNanchor_301-2_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_301-2_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Of course he would have insisted +that a large proportion of all those charged with being +such were mere dealers in fraud or the victims of false +accusation, but the remainder of the cases he would +have explained in this purely natural way.</p> + +<p>Now, if this was not scientific rationalism, it was +at least straight-out skepticism as to the supernatural +in witchcraft. Moreover there are cases +enough in the annals of witchcraft that look very much +as if poison were used. The drawback of course is +that Webster, like Scot, had not disabused his mind +of all superstition. Professor Kittredge in his discussion +of Webster has pointed this out carefully. +Webster believed that the bodies of those that had +been murdered bleed at the touch of the murderer. He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>believed, too, in a sort of "astral spirit,"<a name="FNanchor_302-1_44" id="FNanchor_302-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and he +seems to have been convinced of the truth of apparitions.<a name="FNanchor_302-2_45" id="FNanchor_302-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> +These were phenomena that he believed to be +substantiated by experience. On different grounds, +by <i>a priori</i> reasoning from scriptural premises, he arrived +at the conclusion that God makes use of evil +angels "as the executioners of his justice to chasten +the godly, and to restrain or destroy the wicked."<a name="FNanchor_302-3_46" id="FNanchor_302-3_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-3_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p>This is and was essentially a theological conception. +But there was no small gap between this and the notion +that spirits act in supernatural ways in our every-day +world. And there was nothing more inconsistent +in failing to bridge this gap than in the position of the +Christian people today who believe in a spirit world +and yet discredit without examination all that is offered +as new evidence of its existence.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Webster was too busy at destroying +the fortifications of his opponents to take the trouble to +build up defences for himself. But it is not too much +to call him the most effective of the seventeenth century +assailants of witch persecution in England.<a name="FNanchor_302-4_47" id="FNanchor_302-4_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_302-4_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> He had +this advantage over all who had gone before, that a +large and increasing body of intelligent people were +with him. He spoke in full consciousness of strong +support. It was for his opponents to assume the defensive.</p> + +<p>We have called John Webster's a great name in the +literature of our subject, and we have given our rea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>sons +for so thinking. Yet it would be a mistake to +suppose that he created any such sensation in his time +as did his arch-opponent, Glanvill. His work never +went into a second edition. There are but few references +to it in the writings of the time, and those are in +works devoted to the defence of the belief. Benjamin +Camfield, a Leicestershire rector, wrote an unimportant +book on <i>Angels and their Ministries</i>,<a name="FNanchor_303-1_48" id="FNanchor_303-1_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_303-1_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> and in +an appendix assailed Webster. Joseph Glanvill turned +fiercely upon him with new proofs of what he called +facts, and bequeathed the work at his death to Henry +More, who in the several following editions of the <i>Sadducismus +Triumphatus</i> attacked him with no little bitterness.</p> + +<p>We may skip over three lesser writers on witchcraft. +During the early eighties John Brinley, Henry Hallywell, +and Richard Bovet launched their little boats into +the sea of controversy. Brinley was a bold plagiarist +of Bernard, Hallywell a logical but dull reasoner from +the Bible, Bovet a weakened solution of Glanvill.<a name="FNanchor_303-2_49" id="FNanchor_303-2_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_303-2_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>We turn now from the special literature of witchcraft +to a sketch of the incidental evidences of opinion. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>Of these we have a larger body than ever before, too +large indeed to handle in detail. It would be idle +to quote from the chap-books on witch episodes their +<i>raisons d'être</i>. It all comes to this: they were written +to confute disbelievers. They refer slightingly and +even bitterly to those who oppose belief, not however +without admitting their numbers and influence. It will +be more to our purpose to examine the opinions of +men as they uttered them on the bench, in the pulpit, +and in the other walks of practical life.</p> + +<p>We have already had occasion to learn what the +judges were thinking. We listened to Matthew Hale +while he uttered the pronouncement that was heard all +over England and even in the North American colonies. +The existence of witches, he affirmed solemnly, is +proved by Scripture and by the universality of laws +against them. Justice Rainsford in the following years +and Justice Raymond about twenty years later seem +to have taken Hale's view of the matter. On the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>other side were to be reckoned Sir John Reresby and +Francis North. Neither of them was quite outspoken, +fearing the rage of the people and the charge of atheism. +Both sought to save the victims of persecution, +but rather by exposing the deceptions of the accusers +than by denying witchcraft itself. From the vast number +of acquittals in the seventies and the sudden dropping +off in the number of witch trials in the eighties +we know that there must have been many other judges +who were acquitting witches or quietly ignoring the +charges against them. Doubtless Kelyng, who, as a +spectator at Bury, had shown his skepticism as to the accusations, +had when he later became a chief justice +been one of those who refused to condemn witches.</p> + +<p>From scientific men there were few utterances. +Although we shall in another connection show that +a goodly number from the Royal Society cherished +very definite beliefs—or disbeliefs—on the subject, +we have the opinions of but two men who were professionally +scientists, Sir Thomas Browne and Sir +Robert Boyle. Browne we have already met at the +Bury trial. It may reasonably be questioned whether +he was really a man of science. Certainly he was a +physician of eminence. The attitude he took when an +expert witness at Bury, it will be recalled, was quite +consistent with the opinion given in his <i>Commonplace +Book</i>. "We are noways doubtful," he wrote, "that +there are witches, but have not always been satisfied +in the application of their witchcrafts."<a name="FNanchor_305-1_50" id="FNanchor_305-1_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_305-1_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> So spoke +the famous physician of Norwich. But a man whose +opinion was of much more consequence was Sir Rob<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>ert +Boyle. Boyle was a chemist and "natural philosopher." +He was the discoverer of the air pump, was +elected president of the Royal Society, and was altogether +one of the greatest non-political figures in the +reign of Charles II. While he never, so far as we +know, discussed witchcraft in the abstract, he fathered +a French story that was brought into England, the +story of the Demon of Mascon. He turned the story +over to Glanvill to be used in his list of authentic +narratives; and, when it was later reported that he had +pronounced the demon story an imposture, he took +pains to deny the report in a letter to Glanvill.<a name="FNanchor_306-1_51" id="FNanchor_306-1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_306-1_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>Of literary men we have, as of scientists, but two. +Aubrey, the "delitescent" antiquarian and Will Wimble +of his time, still credited witchcraft, as he credited +all sorts of narratives of ghosts and apparitions. It +was less a matter of reason than of sentiment. The +dramatist Shadwell had the same feeling for literary +values. In his preface to the play, <i>The Lancashire +Witches</i>, he explained that he pictured the witches as +real lest the people should want "diversion," and lest +he should be called "atheistical by a prevailing party +who take it ill that the power of the Devil should be +lessen'd."<a name="FNanchor_306-2_52" id="FNanchor_306-2_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_306-2_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> But Shadwell, although not seriously in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>terested +in any side of the subject save in its use as literary +material, included himself among the group who +had given up belief.</p> + +<p>What philosophers thought we may guess from the +all-pervading influence of Hobbes in this generation. +We have already seen, however, that Henry More,<a name="FNanchor_307-1_53" id="FNanchor_307-1_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_307-1_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> +whose influence in his time was not to be despised, +wrote earnestly and often in support of belief. One +other philosopher may be mentioned. Ralph Cudworth, +in his <i>True Intellectual System</i>, touched on confederacies +with the Devil and remarked in passing that +"there hath been so full an attestation" of these +things "that those our so confident Exploders of them, +in this present Age, can hardly escape the suspicion +of having some Hankring towards Atheism."<a name="FNanchor_307-2_54" id="FNanchor_307-2_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_307-2_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> This +was Glanvill over again. It remains to notice the opinions +of clergymen. The history of witch literature has +been in no small degree the record of clerical opinion. +Glanvill, Casaubon, Muggleton, Camfield, and Hallywell +were all clergymen. Fortunately we have the opinions +of at least half a dozen other churchmen. It will +be remembered that Oliver Heywood, the famous Non-Conformist +preacher of Lancashire, believed, though +not too implicitly, in witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_307-3_55" id="FNanchor_307-3_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_307-3_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> So did Samuel +Clarke, Puritan divine and hagiographer.<a name="FNanchor_307-4_56" id="FNanchor_307-4_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_307-4_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> On the +same side must be reckoned Nathaniel Wanley, compiler +of a curious work on <i>The Wonders of the Little +World</i>.<a name="FNanchor_308-1_57" id="FNanchor_308-1_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_308-1_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> A greater name was that of Isaac Barrow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> +master of Trinity, teacher of Isaac Newton, and one +of the best preachers of his time. He declared that +to suppose all witch stories fictions was to "charge +the world with both extreme Vanity and Malignity."<a name="FNanchor_308-2_58" id="FNanchor_308-2_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_308-2_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +We can cite only one divine on the other side. This +was Samuel Parker, who in his time played many +parts, but who is chiefly remembered as the Bishop of +Oxford during the troubles of James II with the university. +Parker was one of the most disliked ecclesiastics +of his time, but he deserves praise at any rate +for his stand as to witchcraft. We do not know the +details of his opinions; indeed we have nothing more +than the fact that in a correspondence with Glanvill +he questioned the opinions of that distinguished protagonist +of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_308-3_59" id="FNanchor_308-3_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_308-3_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p>By this time it must be clear that there is possible no +hard and fast discrimination by groups between those +that believed in witchcraft and those that did not. We +may say cautiously that through the seventies and +eighties the judges, and probably too the justices of the +peace,<a name="FNanchor_308-4_60" id="FNanchor_308-4_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_308-4_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> were coming to disbelieve. With even greater +caution we may venture the assertion that the clergy, +both Anglican and Non-Conformist, were still clinging +to the superstition. Further generalization would be +extremely hazardous. It looks, however, from the +evidence already presented, as well as from some to +be given in another connection—in discussing the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>Royal Society<a name="FNanchor_309-1_61" id="FNanchor_309-1_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_309-1_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>—as if the scientists had not taken +such a stand as was to be expected of them.</p> + +<p>When we examine the attitude of those who scoffed +at the stories vouched for by Glanvill and More it becomes +evident that they assumed that practically all +thinking men were with them. In other words, they +believed that their group comprised the intellectual +men of the time. Now, it would be easy to rush to the +conclusion that all men who thought in conventional +ways would favor witchcraft, and that those who took +unconventional views would be arrayed on the other +side, but this would be a mistake. Glanvill was an exceedingly +original man, while Muggleton was uncommonly +commonplace; and there were numbered among +those who held to the old opinion men of high intelligence +and brilliant talents.</p> + +<p>We must search, then, for some other basis of classification. +Glanvill gives us an interesting suggestion. +In withering tone he speaks of the "looser gentry and +lesser pretenders to wit." Here is a possible line of +cleavage. Might it be that the more worldly-minded +among the county families, that those too who comprised +what we may call, in the absence of a better term, +the "smart set," and the literary sets of London, were +especially the "deriders" of superstition? It is not +hard to believe that Shadwell, the worldly Bishop +Parker, and the polished Sir William Temple<a name="FNanchor_309-2_62" id="FNanchor_309-2_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_309-2_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> would +fairly reflect the opinions of that class. So too the +diarist Pepys, who found Glanvill "not very convincing." +We can conceive how the ridicule of the super<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>natural +might have become the fad of a certain social +group. The Mompesson affair undoubtedly possessed +elements of humor; the wild tales about Amy Duny +and Rose Cullender would have been uncommonly +diverting, had they not produced such tragic results. +With the stories spun about Julian Cox the witch accusers +could go no farther. They had reached the culmination +of nonsense. Now, it is conceivable that the +clergyman might not see the humor of it, nor the philosopher, +nor the scholar; but the worldly-minded Londoner, +who cared less about texts in Leviticus than did +his father, who knew more about coffee-houses and +plays, and who cultivated clever people with assiduity, +had a better developed sense of humor. It was not +strange that he should smile quizzically when told +these weird stories from the country. He may not +have pondered very deeply on the abstract question +nor read widely—perhaps he had seen Ady's book or +glanced over Scot's—but, when he met keen men in +his group who were laughing quietly at narratives of +witchcraft, he laughed too. And so, quite unobtrusively, +without blare of trumpets, skepticism would +slip into society. It would be useless for Glanvill and +More to call aloud, or for the people to rage. The +classes who mingled in the worldly life of the capital +would scoff; and the country gentry who took their cue +from them would follow suit.</p> + +<p>Of course this is theory. It would require a larger +body of evidence than we can hope to gather on this +subject to prove that the change of opinion that was +surely taking place spread at first through the higher +social strata and was to reach the lower levels only by +slow filtration. Yet such an hypothesis fits in nicely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> +with certain facts. It has already been seen that the +trials for witchcraft dropped off very suddenly towards +the end of the period we are considering. The +drop was accounted for by the changed attitude of +judges and of justices of the peace. The judges avoided +trying witches,<a name="FNanchor_311-1_63" id="FNanchor_311-1_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_311-1_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> the justices were less diligent in discovering +them. But the evidence that we had about +men of other occupations was less encouraging. It +looked as if those who dispensed justice were in advance +of the clergy, of the scholars, physicians, and +scientists of their time. Had the Master of Trinity, +or the physician of Norwich, or the discoverer of the +air pump been the justices of the peace for England, it +is not incredible that superstition would have flourished +for another generation. Was it because the men +of the law possessed more of the matter-of-factness +supposed to be a heritage of every Englishman? Was +it because their special training gave them a saner outlook? +No doubt both elements help to explain the +difference. But is it not possible to believe that the +social grouping of these men had an influence? The +itinerant justices and the justices of the peace were recruited +from the gentry, as none of the other classes +were. Men like Reresby and North inherited the traditions +of their class; they spent part of the year in +London and knew the talk of the town. Can we doubt +that their decisions were influenced by that fact? The +country justice of the peace was removed often enough +from metropolitan influences, but he was usually quick +to catch the feelings of his own class.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>If our theory be true that the jurists were in advance +of other professions and that they were sprung +of a higher stock, it is of course some confirmation of +the larger theory that witchcraft was first discredited +among the gentry. Yet, as we have said before, this +is at best a guess as to how the decline of belief took +place and must be accepted only provisionally. We +have seen that there are other assertions about the +progress of thought in this period that may be ventured +with much confidence. There had been great changes +of opinion. It would not be fair to say that the movement +towards skepticism had been accelerated. Rather, +the movement which had its inception back in the days +of Reginald Scot and had found in the last days of +James I a second impulse, which had been quietly +gaining force in the thirties, forties, and fifties, was +now under full headway. Common sense was coming +into its own.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286-1_1" id="Footnote_286-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Ferris Greenslet, <i>Joseph Glanvill</i> (New York, 1900), 153. The +writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Greenslet's excellent +book on Glanvill.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286-2_2" id="Footnote_286-2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286-2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i> was really <i>The Vanity of Dogmatising</i> (1661) +recast.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287-1_3" id="Footnote_287-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287-1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See, for example, the introductory essay by John Owen in his +edition (London, 1885), of the <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i>, xxvii, xxix. See also +<i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> (citations are all from the edition of 1681), +7, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287-2_4" id="Footnote_287-2_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287-2_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> So at least says Leslie Stephen, <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i> Glanvill himself, +in <i>Essays on Several Important Subjects</i> (1676), says that the sixth +essay, "Philosophical Considerations against Modern Sadducism," had +been printed four times already, <i>i. e.</i>, before 1676. The edition of 1668 +had been revised.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287-3_5" id="Footnote_287-3_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287-3_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This edition was dedicated to Charles, Duke of Richmond and Lenox, +since His Grace had been "pleased to commend the first and more +imperfect Edition."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288-1_6" id="Footnote_288-1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-1_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, Preface, F 3 verso, F 4; see also p. 10. +In the second part see Preface, Aa 2—Aa 3. In several other places +he has insisted upon this point.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288-2_7" id="Footnote_288-2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-2_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, 9 ff., 18 ff., 21 ff., 34 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288-3_8" id="Footnote_288-3_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288-3_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 32, 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289-1_9" id="Footnote_289-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 11-13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289-2_10" id="Footnote_289-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See, for example, <i>ibid.</i>, 88-89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289-3_11" id="Footnote_289-3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289-3_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 25-27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290-1_12" id="Footnote_290-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290-2_13" id="Footnote_290-2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290-2_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 52-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290-3_14" id="Footnote_290-3_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290-3_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> To the argument that witches are not mentioned in the New +Testament he retorted that neither is North America (<i>ibid.</i>, 82).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290-4_15" id="Footnote_290-4_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290-4_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291-1_16" id="Footnote_291-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Nevertheless he took up some of Scot's points.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291-2_17" id="Footnote_291-2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291-2_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, Preface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292-1_18" id="Footnote_292-1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292-1_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292-2_19" id="Footnote_292-2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292-2_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, pt. ii, Relation VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292-3_20" id="Footnote_292-3_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292-3_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Scepsis Scientifica</i> (ed. of 1885), 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293-1_21" id="Footnote_293-1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293-1_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> London, 1668. It was reprinted in 1672 with the title <i>A Treatise +proving Spirits, Witches, and Supernatural Operations by pregnant +instances and evidences</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293-2_22" id="Footnote_293-2_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293-2_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See above, pp. 239-240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294-1_23" id="Footnote_294-1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294-1_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Of Credulity and Incredulity</i>, 29, 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294-2_24" id="Footnote_294-2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294-2_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> He characterizes Reginald Scot as an illiterate wretch, but admits +that he had never read him. It was Wierus whom he chiefly sought +to confute.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295-1_25" id="Footnote_295-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> He was given also to "strong and high tasted liquors." Anthony +à Wood, <i>Athenae Oxonienses</i> (London, 1691-1692; 3d ed., with additions, +London, 1813-1820), ed. of 1813-1820, III, 11-14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295-2_26" id="Footnote_295-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>The Question of Witchcraft Debated</i> (London, 1669), 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295-3_27" id="Footnote_295-3_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-3_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> 1670 (see above, p. 293).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295-4_28" id="Footnote_295-4_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-4_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>The Opinion of Witchcraft Vindicated. In an Answer to a Book +Intituled The Question of Witchcraft Debated</i> (London, 1670).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295-5_29" id="Footnote_295-5_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295-5_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>A True Interpretation of the Witch of Endor</i> (London, 1669).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296-1_30" id="Footnote_296-1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-1_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "By a Pen neer the Convent of Eluthery."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296-2_31" id="Footnote_296-2_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-2_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> London, 1676.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296-3_32" id="Footnote_296-3_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-3_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> To Professor Burr I owe my knowledge of this ascription. The +translator (the English Quaker, William Sewel, all his life a resident +of Holland), calls him "N. Orchard, Predikant in Nieuw-Engeland."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296-4_33" id="Footnote_296-4_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296-4_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> See <i>Doctrine of Devils</i>, chaps. VII, VIII, and <i>cf.</i> Scot, <i>Discoverie of +Witchcraft</i>, 512-514.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297-1_34" id="Footnote_297-1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-1_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Glanvill had answered a somewhat similar argument, that the miracles +of the Bible were wrought by the agency of the Devil.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297-2_35" id="Footnote_297-2_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-2_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> He said also that, if the Devil could take on "men's shapes, forms, +habits, countenances, tones, gates, statures, ages, complexions ... and +act in the shape assumed," there could be absolutely no certainty +about the proceedings of justice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297-3_36" id="Footnote_297-3_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297-3_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> The book had been written four years earlier.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298-1_37" id="Footnote_298-1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298-1_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> See G. L. Kittredge, "Notes on Witchcraft," in American Antiquarian +Soc., <i>Proceedings</i>, n. s., XVIII (1906-1907), 169-176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298-2_38" id="Footnote_298-2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298-2_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> There is, however, no little brilliance and insight in some of +Webster's reasoning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299-1_39" id="Footnote_299-1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299-1_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, 38-41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300-1_40" id="Footnote_300-1_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300-1_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300-2_41" id="Footnote_300-2_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300-2_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301-1_42" id="Footnote_301-1_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301-1_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>The Witch-Persecutions</i> (University of Pennsylvania Translations +and Reprints, vol. III, no. 4), revised ed. (Philadelphia, 1903), p. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301-2_43" id="Footnote_301-2_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301-2_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, 247-248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302-1_44" id="Footnote_302-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, 308, 312 ff. The astral spirit +which he conceived was not unlike More's and Glanvill's "thin and +tenuous substance."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302-2_45" id="Footnote_302-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 294 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302-3_46" id="Footnote_302-3_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-3_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 219-228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302-4_47" id="Footnote_302-4_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302-4_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The author of <i>The Doctrine of Devils</i> (see above, note 32), was +thorough-going enough, but his work seems to have attracted much less +attention.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303-1_48" id="Footnote_303-1_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303-1_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> London, 1678.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303-2_49" id="Footnote_303-2_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303-2_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> John Brinley, "Gentleman," brought out in 1680 <i>A Discovery of +the Impostures of Witches and Astrologers</i>. Portions of his book +would pass for good thinking until one awakens to the feeling that he +has read something like this before. As a matter of fact Brinley had +stolen the line of thought and much of the phrasing from Richard Bernard +(1627, see above, pp. 234-236), and without giving any credit. A +second edition of Brinley's work was issued in 1686. It was the same +in every respect save that the dedication was omitted and the title +changed to <i>A Discourse Proving by Scripture and Reason and the Best +Authors Ancient and Modern that there are Witches</i>. +</p><p> +Henry Hallywell, a Cambridge master of arts and sometime fellow +of Christ's College, issued in 1681 <i>Melampronoea, or a Discourse of the +Polity and Kingdom of Darkness, Together with a Solution of the chiefest +Objections brought against the Being of Witches</i>. Hallywell was +another in the long list of Cambridge men who defended superstition. +He set about to assail the "over-confident Exploders of Immaterial +Substances" by a course of logical deductions from Scripture. His +treatise is slow reading. +</p><p> +Richard Bovet, "Gentleman," gave the world in 1684 <i>Pandæmonium, +or the Devil's Cloyster; being a further Blow to Modern Sadduceism</i>. +There was nothing new about his discussion, which he dedicates to Dr. +Henry More. His attitude was defensive in the extreme. He was consumed +with indignation at disbelievers: "They oppose their simple <i>ipse +dixit</i> against the most unquestionable Testimonies"; they even dare +to "affront that relation of the Dæmon of Tedworth." He was indeed +cast down over the situation. He himself relates a very patent instance +of witchcraft in Somerset; yet, despite the fact that numerous +physicians agreed on the matter, no "justice was applyed." One of +Bovet's chief purposes in his work was to show "the Confederacy of +several Popes and Roman Priests with the Devil." He makes one important +admission in regard to witchcraft; namely, that the confessions +of witches might sometimes be the result of "a Deep Melancholy, or +some Terrour that they may have been under."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305-1_50" id="Footnote_305-1_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305-1_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Works</i>, ed. of 1835-1836, IV, 389.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306-1_51" id="Footnote_306-1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306-1_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> For Boyle's opinions see also Webster, <i>Displaying of Supposed +Witchcraft</i>, 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306-2_52" id="Footnote_306-2_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306-2_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> He says also: "For my part I am ... somewhat cotive of belief. +The evidences I have represented are natural, viz., slight, and +frivolous, such as poor old women were wont to be hang'd upon." The +play may be found in all editions of Shadwell's works. I have +used the rare privately printed volume in which, under the title of +<i>The Poetry of Witchcraft</i> (Brixton Hill, 1853), J. O. Halliwell [-Phillips] +united this play of Shadwell's with that of Heywood and Brome on +<i>The late Lancashire Witches</i>. These two plays, so similar in title, that +of Heywood and Brome in 1634, based on the case of 1633, and that of +Shadwell in 1682, based on the affair of 1612, must not be confused. +See above pp. 121, 158-160, 244-245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307-1_53" id="Footnote_307-1_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307-1_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> See above, pp. 238-239.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307-2_54" id="Footnote_307-2_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307-2_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <i>The True Intellectual System of the Universe</i> (London, 1678), +702.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307-3_55" id="Footnote_307-3_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307-3_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> See above, p. 256 and note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307-4_56" id="Footnote_307-4_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307-4_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> See his <i>Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons</i> (London, 1683), 172; also +his <i>Mirrour or Looking Glass, Both for Saints and Sinners</i> (London, +1657-1671), I, 35-38; II, 159-183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308-1_57" id="Footnote_308-1_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308-1_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> London, 1678; see pp. 515-518.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308-2_58" id="Footnote_308-2_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308-2_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>Works</i> (ed. of Edinburgh, 1841), II, 162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308-3_59" id="Footnote_308-3_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308-3_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308-4_60" id="Footnote_308-4_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308-4_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> By the eighties it is very clear that the justices were ceasing to +press charges against witches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309-1_61" id="Footnote_309-1_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309-1_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> In an article to be published separately.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309-2_62" id="Footnote_309-2_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309-2_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> See his essay "Of Poetry" in his <i>Works</i> (London, 1814), III, +430-431.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311-1_63" id="Footnote_311-1_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311-1_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Justice Jeffreys and Justice Herbert both acquitted witches according +to F. A. Inderwick, <i>Sidelights on the Stuarts</i> (2d ed., London, 1891), +174.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Final Decline.</h3> + + +<p>In the history of witchcraft the years from 1688 to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> +1718 may be grouped together as comprising a period. +This is not to say that the year of the Revolution +marked any transition in the course of the superstition. +It did not. But we have ventured to employ it +as a convenient date with which to bound the influences +of the Restoration. The year 1718 derives its importance +for us from the publication, in that year, of Francis +Hutchinson's <i>Historical Essay on Witchcraft</i>, a +book which, it is not too much to say, gave the final +blow to the belief in England.<a name="FNanchor_313-1_1" id="FNanchor_313-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_313-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>We speak of fixing a date by which to bound the influences +of the Restoration. Now, as a matter of fact, +there is something arbitrary about any date. The +influences at work during the previous period went +steadily on. The heathen raged, and the people imagined +a vain thing. The great proletariat hated witches as +much as ever. But the justices of the peace and the +itinerant judges were getting over their fear of popular +opinion and were refusing to listen to the accusations +that were brought before them. The situation +was in some respects the same as it had been in the +later seventies and throughout the eighties. Yet there +were certain features that distinguished the period. +One of them was the increased use of exorcism. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>expelling of evil spirits had been a subject of great +controversy almost a century before. The practice +had by no means been forgotten in the mean time, but +it had gained little public notice. Now the dispossessors +of the Devil came to the front again long +enough to whet the animosity between Puritans and +Anglicans in Lancashire. But this never became more +than a pamphlet controversy. The other feature of +the period was far more significant. The last executions +for witchcraft in England were probably those +at Exeter in 1682.<a name="FNanchor_314-1_2" id="FNanchor_314-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_314-1_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> For a whole generation the courts +had been frowning on witch prosecution. Now there +arose in England judges who definitely nullified +the law on the statute-book. By the decisions of Powell +and Parker, and most of all by those of Holt, the +statute of the first year of James I was practically +made obsolete twenty-five or fifty years before its actual +repeal in 1736. We shall see that the gradual +breaking down of the law by the judges did not take +place without a struggle. At the famous trial in Hertford +in 1712 the whole subject of the Devil and his +relation to witches came up again in its most definite +form, and was fought out in the court room and at +the bar of public opinion. It was, however, but the +last rallying and counter-charging on a battle-field +where Webster and Glanvill had led the hosts at mid-day. +The issue, indeed, was now very specific. Over +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>the abstract question of witchcraft there was nothing +new to be said. Here, however, was a specific instance. +What was to be done with it? Over that there was +waged a merry war. Of course the conclusion was +foregone. It had indeed been anticipated by the action +of the bench.</p> + +<p>We shall see that with the nullification of the law +the common people began to take the law into their +own hands. We shall note that, as a consequence, +there was an increase in the number of swimming ordeals +and other illegal procedures.</p> + +<p>The story of the Lancashire demonomania is not +unlike the story of William Somers in Nottingham a +century before. In this case there was no John Darrel, +and the exorcists were probably honest but deluded +men. The affair started at the village of Surey, near +to the superstition-brewing Pendle Forest. The possessed +boy, Richard Dugdale, was a gardener and servant +about nineteen years of age.<a name="FNanchor_315-1_3" id="FNanchor_315-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_315-1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In April, 1689, he +was seized with fits in which he was asserted to speak +Latin and Greek and to preach against the sins of the +place. Whatever his pretensions were, he seemed +a good subject for exorcism. Some of the Catholics +are said to have tampered with him, and then several +Puritan clergymen of the community took him in +hand. For eight months they held weekly fasts for +his recovery; but their efforts were not so successful +as they had hoped. They began to suspect witchcraft<a name="FNanchor_315-2_4" id="FNanchor_315-2_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_315-2_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +and were about to take steps towards the prosecution +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>of the party suspected.<a name="FNanchor_316-1_5" id="FNanchor_316-1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_316-1_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This came to nothing, but +Dugdale at length grew better. He was relieved of his +fits; and the clergymen, who had never entirely given +up their efforts to cure him, hastened to claim the +credit. More than a dozen of the dissenting preachers, +among them Richard Frankland, Oliver Heywood,<a name="FNanchor_316-2_6" id="FNanchor_316-2_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_316-2_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +and other well known Puritan leaders in northern +England, had lent their support to Thomas Jollie, who +had taken the leading part in the praying and fasting. +From London, Richard Baxter, perhaps the best known +Puritan of his time, had sent a request for some account +of the wonder, in order to insert it in his forthcoming +book on the spirit world. This led to a plan +for printing a complete narrative of what had happened; +but the plan was allowed to lapse with the death +of Baxter.<a name="FNanchor_316-3_7" id="FNanchor_316-3_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_316-3_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Meantime, however, the publication in +London of the Mathers' accounts of the New England +trials of 1692<a name="FNanchor_316-4_8" id="FNanchor_316-4_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_316-4_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> caused a new call for the story of Richard +Dugdale. It was prepared and sent to London; +and there in some mysterious way the manuscript was +lost.<a name="FNanchor_316-5_9" id="FNanchor_316-5_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_316-5_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It was, however, rewritten and appeared in 1697 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>as <i>The Surey Demoniack, or an Account of Strange +and Dreadful Actings in and about the Body of Richard +Dugdale</i>. The preface was signed by six ministers, +including those already named; but the book was +probably written by Thomas Jollie and John Carrington.<a name="FNanchor_317-1_10" id="FNanchor_317-1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_317-1_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +The reality of the possession was attested by +depositions taken before two Lancashire justices of the +peace. The aim of the work was, of course, to add one +more contemporary link to the chain of evidence for +the supernatural. It was clear to the divines who +strove with the possessed boy that his case was of +exactly the same sort as those in the New Testament. +Moreover, his recovery was a proof of the power of +prayer.</p> + +<p>Now Non-Conformity was strong in Lancashire, +and the Anglican church as well as the government +had for many years been at no little pains to put it +down. Here was a chance to strike the Puritans at +one of their weakest spots, and the Church of England +was not slow to use its opportunity. Zachary Taylor, +rector of Wigan and chaplain to the Bishop of Chester, +had already familiarized himself with the methods +of the exorcists. In the previous year he had attacked +the Catholics of Lancashire for an exorcism which +they claimed to have accomplished within his parish.<a name="FNanchor_317-2_11" id="FNanchor_317-2_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_317-2_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> +Pleased with his new rôle, he found in Thomas Jollie +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>a sheep ready for the shearing.<a name="FNanchor_318-1_12" id="FNanchor_318-1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_318-1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> He hastened to publish +<i>The Surey Impostor</i>,<a name="FNanchor_318-2_13" id="FNanchor_318-2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_318-2_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> in which, with a very good +will, he made an assault upon the reality of Dugdale's +fits, charged that he had been pre-instructed by the +Catholics, and that the Non-Conformist clergymen +were seeking a rich harvest from the miracles they +should work. Self-glorification was their aim. He +made fun of the several divines engaged in the affair, +and accused them of trickery and presumption in their +conduct of the case.<a name="FNanchor_318-3_14" id="FNanchor_318-3_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_318-3_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>Of course Taylor was answered, and with a bitterness +equal to his own. Thomas Jollie replied in <i>A +Vindication of the Surey Demoniack</i>. "I will not +foul my Paper," wrote the mild Jollie, "and offend +my reader with those scurrilous and ridiculous Passages +in this Page. O, the Eructations of an exulcerated +Heart! How desperately wicked is the Heart +of Man!"<a name="FNanchor_318-4_15" id="FNanchor_318-4_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_318-4_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>We shall not go into the details of the controversy, +which really degenerated into a sectarian squabble.<a name="FNanchor_318-5_16" id="FNanchor_318-5_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_318-5_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +The only discussion of the subject that approached +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>fairness was by an anonymous writer,<a name="FNanchor_319-1_17" id="FNanchor_319-1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_319-1_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> who professed +himself impartial and of a different religious +persuasion from Jollie. To be sure, he was a man +who believed in possession by spirits. It may be questioned, +too, whether his assumption of fair dealing +towards the Church of England was altogether justified. +But, at any rate, his work was free from invective +and displayed moderation. He felt that the Dissenting +clergymen were probably somewhat deluded. +But they had acted, he believed, under good motives +in attempting to help one who had appealed to them. +Some of them were not only "serious good Men," but +men well known in the nation. This, indeed, was true. +The Dissenters had laid themselves open to attack, +and doubtless some of them saw and regretted their +mistake. At least, it seems not without significance +that neither Oliver Heywood nor Richard Frankland +nor any other of the Dissenters was sure enough of his +ground to support Jollie in the controversy into which +he had been led.<a name="FNanchor_319-2_18" id="FNanchor_319-2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_319-2_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>We have gone into some detail about the Dugdale +affair because of its importance in its time, and because +it was so essentially characteristic of the last era +of the struggle over the power of the Devil. There +were cases of possession not only in Lancashire but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>in Somersetshire and in and around London. Not +without a struggle was His Satanic Majesty surrendering +his hold.</p> + +<p>We turn from this controversy to follow the decisions +of those eminent judges who were nullifying the +statute against witches. We have already mentioned +three names, those of Holt, Powell, and Parker. This +is not because they were the only jurists who were +giving verdicts of acquittal—we know that there must +have been others—but because their names are linked +with significant decisions. Without doubt Chief Justice +Holt did more than any other man in English +history to end the prosecution of witches. Justice +Powell was not so brave a man, but he happened to +preside over one of the most bitterly contested of all +trials, and his verdict served to reaffirm the precedents +set by Holt. It was Justice Parker's fortune to try the +last case of witchcraft in England.</p> + +<p>Holt became chief justice of the king's bench on the +accession of William and Mary. Not one of the great +names in English judicial rolls, his decided stand +against superstition makes him great in the history of +witchcraft. Where and when he had acquired his skeptical +attitude we do not know. The time was past +when such an attitude was unusual. In any case, from +the moment he assumed the chief justiceship he set +himself directly against the punishment of witchcraft. +As premier of the English judiciary his example meant +quite as much as his own rulings. And their cumulative +effect was not slight. We know of no less than +eleven trials where as presiding officer he was instrumental +in securing a verdict of acquittal. In London, +at Ipswich, at Bury, at Exeter, in Cornwall, and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> +other parts of the realm, these verdicts were rendered, +and they could not fail to influence opinion and to +affect the decisions of other judges. Three of the +trials we shall go over briefly—those at Bury, Exeter, +and Southwark.</p> + +<p>In 1694 he tried Mother Munnings at Bury St. Edmunds,<a name="FNanchor_321-1_19" id="FNanchor_321-1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_321-1_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +where his great predecessor Hale had condemned +two women. Mother Munnings had declared +that a landlord should lie nose upward in the church-yard +before the next Saturday, and, sure enough, her +prophecy had come true. Nevertheless, in spite of this +and other testimony, she was acquitted. Two years +later Holt tried Elizabeth Horner at Exeter, where +Raymond had condemned three women in 1682. +Bishop Trelawny of Exeter had sent his sub-dean, +Launcelot Blackburne (later to be Archbishop of +York), to look into the case, and his report adds something +to the account which Hutchinson has given us.<a name="FNanchor_321-2_20" id="FNanchor_321-2_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_321-2_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +Elizabeth was seen "three nights together upon a large +down in the same place, as if rising out of the ground." +It was certified against her by a witness that she had +driven a red-hot nail "into the witche's left foot-step, +upon which she went lame, and, being search'd, her +leg and foot appear'd to be red and fiery." These +testimonies were the "most material against her," as +well as the evidence of the mother of some possessed +children, who declared that her daughter had walked +up a wall nine feet high four or five times backwards +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>and forwards, her face and the fore part of her body +parallel to the ceiling, saying that Betty Horner +carried her up. In closing the narrative the archdeacon +wrote without comment: "My Lord Chief +Justice by his questions and manner of hemming up +the evidence seem'd to me to believe nothing of witchery +at all, and to disbelieve the fact of walking up the +wall which was sworn by the mother." He added, +"the jury brought her in not guilty."</p> + +<p>The case of Sarah Moordike of London <i>versus</i> +Richard Hathaway<a name="FNanchor_322-1_21" id="FNanchor_322-1_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_322-1_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> makes even clearer the attitude +of Holt. Sarah Moordike, or Morduck, had been +accused years before by a Richard Hathaway of causing +his illness. On several occasions he had scratched +her. Persecuted by the rabble, she had betaken herself +from Southwark to London. Thither Richard Hathaway +followed her and soon had several churches praying +for his recovery. She had appealed to a magistrate +for protection, had been refused, and had been tried at +the assizes in Guildford, where she was acquitted. By +this time, however, a good many people had begun to +think Hathaway a cheat. He was arrested and put +under the care of a surgeon, who watched him closely +and soon discovered that the fasts which were a feature +of his pretended fits were false. This was not +the first time that he had been proved an impostor. +On an earlier occasion he had been trapped into +scratching a woman whom he erroneously supposed +to be Sarah Morduck. In spite of all exposures, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>ever, +he stuck to his pretended fits and was at length +brought before the assizes at Southwark on the charge +of attempting to take away the life of Sarah Moordike +for being a witch. It is refreshing to know that +a clergyman, Dr. Martin, had espoused the cause of +the witch and had aided in bringing Hathaway to +judgment. Chief Justice Holt and Baron Hatsell +presided over the court,<a name="FNanchor_323-1_22" id="FNanchor_323-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_323-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> and there seems to have been +no doubt about the outcome. The jury "without going +from the bar" brought Hathaway in guilty.<a name="FNanchor_323-2_23" id="FNanchor_323-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_323-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> The +verdict was significant. Pretenders had got themselves +into trouble before, but were soon out. The Boy of +Bilston had been reproved; the young Robinson, who +would have sent to the gallows a dozen fellow-creatures, +thought it hard that he was kept a few months +confined in London.<a name="FNanchor_323-3_24" id="FNanchor_323-3_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_323-3_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> A series of cases in the reign +of Charles I had shown that it was next to impossible +to recover damages for being slandered as a witch, +though in the time of the Commonwealth one woman +had come out of a suit with five shillings to her credit. +Of course, when a man of distinction was slandered, +circumstances were altered. At some time very close +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>to the trial of Hathaway, Elizabeth Hole of Derbyshire +was summoned to the assizes for accusing Sir +Henry Hemloke, a well known baronet, of witchcraft.<a name="FNanchor_324-1_25" id="FNanchor_324-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_324-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +Such a charge against a man of position was a serious +matter. But the Moordike-Hathaway case was on a +plane entirely different from any of these cases. Sarah +Morduck was not a woman of position, yet her +accuser was punished, probably by a long imprisonment. +It was a precedent that would be a greater safeguard +to supposed witches than many acquittals.</p> + +<p>Justice Powell was not to wield the authority of Holt: +yet he made one decision the effects of which were far-reaching. +It was in the trial of Jane Wenham at Hertford +in 1712. The trial of this woman was in a sense +her own doing. She was a widow who had done washing +by the day. For a long time she had been suspected +of witchcraft by a neighboring farmer, so much so +that, when a servant of his began to act queerly, he +at once laid the blame on the widow. Jane applied to +Sir Henry Chauncy, justice of the peace, for a warrant +against her accuser. He was let off with a fine +of a shilling, and she was instructed by Mr. Gardiner, +the clergyman, to live more peaceably.<a name="FNanchor_324-2_26" id="FNanchor_324-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_324-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> So ended +the first act. In the next scene of this dramatic case a +female servant of the Reverend Mr. Gardiner's, a maid +just getting well of a broken knee, was discovered +alone in a room undressed "to her shift" and holding +a bundle of sticks. When asked to account for her +condition by Mrs. Gardiner, she had a curious story +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>to tell. "When she was left alone she found a strange +Roaming in her head, ... her Mind ran upon Jane +Wenham and she thought she must run some whither +... she climbed over a Five-Bar-Gate, and ran along +the Highway up a Hill ... as far as a Place called +Hackney-Lane, where she look'd behind her, and saw +a little Old Woman Muffled in a Riding-hood." This +dame had asked whither she was going, had told her to +pluck some sticks from an oak tree, had bade her +bundle them in her gown, and, last and most wonderful, +had given her a large crooked pin.<a name="FNanchor_325-1_27" id="FNanchor_325-1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_325-1_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Mrs. Gardiner, +so the account goes, took the sticks and threw +them into the fire. Presto! Jane Wenham came into +the room, pretending an errand. It was afterwards +found out that the errand was fictitious.</p> + +<p>All this raised a stir. The tale was absolutely original, +it was no less remarkable. A maid with a +broken knee had run a half-mile and back in seven +minutes, very good time considering the circumstances. +On the next day the maid, despite the knee and the +fits she had meantime contracted, was sent out on an +errand. She met Jane Wenham and that woman quite +properly berated her for the stories she had set going, +whereupon the maid's fits were worse than ever. Then, +while several people carefully watched her, she repeated +her former long distance run, leaping over a +five-bar gate "as nimbly as a greyhound."</p> + +<p>Jane Wenham was now imprisoned by the justice +of the peace, who collected with all speed the evidence +against her. In this he was aided by the Reverend +Francis Bragge, rector of Walkerne, and the Reverend +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>Mr. Strutt, vicar of Audley. The wretched woman +asked the justice to let her submit to the ordeal of +water,<a name="FNanchor_326-1_28" id="FNanchor_326-1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_326-1_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> but he refused, pronouncing it illegal and unjustifiable. +Meantime, the Rev. Mr. Strutt used the +test of the Lord's Prayer,<a name="FNanchor_326-2_29" id="FNanchor_326-2_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_326-2_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> a test that had been discarded +for half a century. She failed to say the prayer +aright, and alleged in excuse that "she was much disturbed +in her head," as well she might be. But other +evidence came in against her rapidly. She had been +caught stealing turnips, and had quite submissively +begged pardon, saying that she had no victuals that +day and no money to buy any.<a name="FNanchor_326-3_30" id="FNanchor_326-3_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_326-3_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> On the very next day +the man who gave this evidence had lost one of his +sheep and found another "taken strangely, skipping +and standing upon its head."<a name="FNanchor_326-4_31" id="FNanchor_326-4_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_326-4_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> There were other equally +silly scraps of testimony. We need not go into them. +The two officious clergymen busied themselves with +her until one of them was able to wring some sort of +a confession from her. It was a narrative in which +she tried to account for the strange conduct of Anne +Thorne and made a failure of it.<a name="FNanchor_326-5_32" id="FNanchor_326-5_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_326-5_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> A few days later, +in the presence of three clergymen and a justice of +the peace, she was urged to repeat her confession +but was "full of Equivocations and Evasions," and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>when pressed told her examiners that they "lay in wait +for her Life."</p> + +<p>Bragge and Strutt had shown a great deal of energy +in collecting evidence. Yet, when the case came to +trial, the woman was accused only of dealing with a +spirit in the shape of a cat.<a name="FNanchor_327-1_33" id="FNanchor_327-1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_327-1_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> This was done on the +advice of a lawyer. Unfortunately we have no details +about his reasons, but it would look very much as if +the lawyer recognized that the testimony collected by +the ministers would no longer influence the court, and +believed that the one charge of using a cat as a spirit +might be substantiated. The assizes were largely attended. +"So vast a number of People," writes an eye-witness, +"have not been together at the Assizes in the +memory of Man."<a name="FNanchor_327-2_34" id="FNanchor_327-2_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_327-2_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Besides the evidence brought in +by the justice of the peace, who led the prosecution with +vigor, the Rev. Mr. Bragge, who was not to be repressed +because the charges had been limited, gave +some most remarkable testimony about the stuffing +of Anne Thorne's pillow. It was full of cakes of +small feathers fastened together with some viscous +matter resembling much the "ointment made of dead +men's flesh" mentioned by Mr. Glanvill. Bragge +had done a piece of research upon the stuff and discovered +that the particles were arranged in geometrical +forms with equal numbers in each part.<a name="FNanchor_327-3_35" id="FNanchor_327-3_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_327-3_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Justice +Powell called for the pillow, but had to be content +with the witness's word, for the pillow had been +burnt. Arthur Chauncy, who was probably a relative +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>of the justice of the peace, offered to show the judge +pins taken from Anne Thorne. It was needless, replied +the judge, he supposed they were crooked pins.<a name="FNanchor_328-1_36" id="FNanchor_328-1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_328-1_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> The +leaders of the prosecution seem to have felt that the +judge was sneering at them throughout the trial. When +Anne Thorne was in a fit, and the Reverend Mr. Chishull, +being permitted to pray over her, read the office +for the visitation of the sick, Justice Powell mockingly +commented "That he had heard there were Forms of +Exorcism in the Romish Liturgy, but knew not that we +had any in our Church."<a name="FNanchor_328-2_37" id="FNanchor_328-2_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_328-2_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> It must have been a great +disappointment to these Anglican clergymen that Powell +took the case so lightly. When it was testified against +the accused that she was accustomed to fly, Powell is +said to have said to her, "You may, there is no law +against flying."<a name="FNanchor_328-3_38" id="FNanchor_328-3_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_328-3_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> This indeed is quite in keeping with +the man as described by Swift: "an old fellow with +grey hairs, who was the merriest old gentleman I ever +saw, spoke pleasing things, and chuckled till he cried +again."</p> + +<p>In spite of Powell's obvious opinion on the trial, +he could not hinder a conviction. No doubt the jury +were greatly swayed by the crowds. The judge seems +to have gone through the form of condemning the +woman, but took pains to see that she was reprieved.<a name="FNanchor_328-4_39" id="FNanchor_328-4_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_328-4_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>In the mean time her affair, like that of Richard Dugdale, +had become a matter of sectarian quarrel. It was +stated by the enemies of Jane Wenham that she was +supported in prison by the Dissenters,<a name="FNanchor_329-1_40" id="FNanchor_329-1_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_329-1_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> although they +said that up to this time she had never been a church-going +woman. It was the Dugdale case over again, +save that the parties were reversed. Then Puritans +had been arrayed on the side of superstition; now +some of the Anglicans seem to have espoused that +cause.<a name="FNanchor_329-2_41" id="FNanchor_329-2_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_329-2_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Of course the stir produced was greater. Mistress +Jane found herself "the discourse of the town" +in London, and a pamphlet controversy ensued that +was quite as heated as that between Thomas Jollie +and Zachary Taylor. No less than ten brochures were +issued. The justice of the peace allowed his story of the +case to be published and the Reverend Mr. Bragge +rushed into print with a book that went through five +editions. Needless to say, the defenders of Jane Wenham +and of the judge who released her were not hesitant +in replying. A physician who did not sign his +name directed crushing ridicule against the whole affair,<a name="FNanchor_329-3_42" id="FNanchor_329-3_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_329-3_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> +while a defender of Justice Powell considered +the case in a mild-mannered fashion: he did not deny +the possibility of witchcraft, but made a keen impeachment +of the trustworthiness of the witnesses +against the woman.<a name="FNanchor_329-4_43" id="FNanchor_329-4_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_329-4_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p><p>But we cannot linger over the details of this controversy. +Justice Powell had stirred up a hornets' nest of +opposition, but it meant little.<a name="FNanchor_330-1_44" id="FNanchor_330-1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_330-1_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> The insects could buzz; +but their stingers were drawn.</p> + +<p>The last trial for witchcraft was conducted in 1717 +at Leicester by Justice Parker.<a name="FNanchor_330-2_45" id="FNanchor_330-2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_330-2_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> Curiously enough, the +circumstances connected with it make it evident that +crudest forms of superstition were still alive. Decency +forbids that we should narrate the details of the +methods used to demonstrate the guilt of the suspected +parties. No less than twenty-five people banded themselves +against "Old woman Norton and daughter" +and put them through tests of the most approved +character. It need hardly be said that the swimming +ordeal was tried and that both creatures "swam like +a cork." The persecutors then set to work to "fetch +blood of the witches." In this they had "good success," +but the witches "would be so stubborn, that +they were often forced to call the constable to bring +assistance of a number of persons to hold them by +force to be blooded."<a name="FNanchor_330-3_46" id="FNanchor_330-3_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_330-3_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> The "old witch" was also +stripped and searched "publickly before a great number +of good women." The most brutal and illegal of +all forms of witch procedure had been revived, as if +to celebrate the last appearance of the Devil. But the +rest of the story is pleasanter. When the case came +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>before the grand jury at the assizes, over which Justice +Parker was presiding, "the bill was not found."</p> + +<p>With this the story of English trials comes to an end. +The statute of James I had been practically quashed, +and, though it was not to be taken from the law books +for nineteen years, it now meant nothing. It was +very hard for the great common people to realize what +had happened. As the law was breaking down they +had shown an increasing tendency to take justice into +their own hands. In the case with which we have +just been dealing we have seen the accusers infringing +the personal rights of the individual, and calling in the +constables to help them in their utterly unlawful performances. +This was not new. As early as 1691, if +Hutchinson may be trusted, there were "several tried +by swimming in Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, and +Northamptonshire and some were drowned." It +would be easy to add other and later accounts,<a name="FNanchor_331-1_47" id="FNanchor_331-1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_331-1_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> but we +must be content with one.<a name="FNanchor_331-2_48" id="FNanchor_331-2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_331-2_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The widow Coman, in +Essex, had recently lost her husband; and her pastor, +the Reverend Mr. Boys, went to cheer her in her melancholy. +Because he had heard her accounted a witch +he questioned her closely and received a nonchalant +admission of relations with the Devil. That astounded +him. When he sought to inquire more closely, he was +put off. "Butter is eight pence a pound and Cheese +a groat a pound," murmured the woman, and the +clergyman left in bewilderment. But he came back in +the afternoon, and she raved so wildly that he con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>cluded +her confession was but "a distraction in her +head." Two women, however, worried from her further +and more startling confessions. The minister +returned, bringing with him "Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. +Grimes," two of the disbelieving "sparks of the age." +The rest of the story may be told as it is given in another +account, a diary of the time. "July 3d, 1699, the +widow Coman was put into the river to see if she +would sinke, ... and she did not sinke but swim, ... +and she was tryed again July 19, and then she swam +again. July 24 the widow was tryed a third time by +putting her into the river and she swam. December 27. +The widow Coman that was counted a witch was +buried." The intervening links need hardly be supplied, +but the Reverend Mr. Boys has given them: +"whether by the cold she got in the water, or by some +other means, she fell very ill and dyed."</p> + +<p>It must have been very diverting, this experimentation +by water, and it had become so popular by the beginning +of the eighteenth century that Chief Justice Holt<a name="FNanchor_332-1_49" id="FNanchor_332-1_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_332-1_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +is said to have ruled that in the future, where swimming +had fatal results, those responsible would be prosecuted +for murder. Such a declaration perhaps caused +some disuse of the method for a time, but it was revived +in the second third of the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>Popular feeling still arrayed itself against the witch. +If the increasing use of the swimming ordeal was the +answer to the non-enforcement of the Jacobean statute, +it was the answer of the ignorant classes. Their +influence was bound to diminish. But another possible +consequence of the breaking down of the law may be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>suggested. Mr. Inderwick, who has looked much into +English witchcraft, says that "from 1686 to 1712 ... the +charges and convictions of malicious injury to property +in burning haystacks, barns, and houses, and malicious +injuries to persons and to cattle increased enormously."<a name="FNanchor_333-1_50" id="FNanchor_333-1_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_333-1_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +This is very interesting, if true, and it seems +quite in accord with the history of witchcraft that it +should be true. Again and again we have seen that the +charge of witchcraft was a weapon of prosecutors who +could not prove other suspected crimes. As the charges +of witchcraft fell off, accusations for other crimes +would naturally be multiplied; and, now that it was no +longer easy to lay everything to the witch of a community, +the number of the accused would also grow.</p> + +<p>We are now at the end of the witch trials. In +another chapter we shall trace the history of opinion +through this last period. With the dismissal of the +Norton women at Leicester, the courts were through +with witch trials.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313-1_1" id="Footnote_313-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See below, pp. 342-343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314-1_2" id="Footnote_314-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314-1_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> We are assuming that the cases at Northampton in 1705 and at +Huntingdon in 1716 have no basis of fact. At Northampton two +women, according to the pamphlet account, had been hanged and burnt; +at Huntingdon, according to another account, a woman and her daughter. +It is possible that these pamphlets deal with historical events; but the +probabilities are all against that supposition. For a discussion of the +matter in detail see below, appendix A, § 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315-1_3" id="Footnote_315-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315-1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> For his early history see <i>The Surey Demoniack, ... or, an Account +of Satan's ... Actings, In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale....</i> +(London, 1697).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315-2_4" id="Footnote_315-2_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315-2_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The Catholics do not seem, so far as the account goes, to have said +anything about witchcraft.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316-1_5" id="Footnote_316-1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316-1_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>The Surey Demoniack</i>, 49; Zachary Taylor, <i>The Surey Impostor, +being an answer to a ... Pamphlet, Entituled The Surey Demoniack</i> +(London, 1697), 21-22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316-2_6" id="Footnote_316-2_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316-2_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "N. N.," <i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Vindication of the +Dissenters from Popery....</i> (London, 1698), 3-4; see also the preface +of <i>The Surey Demoniack</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316-3_7" id="Footnote_316-3_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316-3_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316-4_8" id="Footnote_316-4_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316-4_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>The Wonders of the Invisible World: being an Account of the Tryals +of ... Witches ... in New England</i> (London, 1693), by Cotton Mather, +and <i>A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches</i> +(London, 1693), by Increase Mather. See preface to <i>The Surey +Demoniack</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316-5_9" id="Footnote_316-5_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316-5_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Thomas Jollie told a curious tale about how the manuscript had +been forcibly taken from the man who was carrying it to the press by +a group of armed men on the Strand. See <i>ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317-1_10" id="Footnote_317-1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317-1_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Alexander Gordon in his article on Thomas Jollie, <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i>, +says that the pamphlet was drafted by Jollie and expanded by Carrington. +Zachary Taylor, in his answer to it (<i>The Surey Impostor</i>), constantly +names Mr. Carrington as the author. "N. N.," in <i>The Lancashire +Levite Rebuked</i>, also assumes that Carrington was the author.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317-2_11" id="Footnote_317-2_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317-2_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>The Devil Turned Casuist, or the Cheats of Rome Laid open in the +Exorcism of a Despairing Devil....</i> By Zachary Taylor, ... (London, +1696).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318-1_12" id="Footnote_318-1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318-1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> It is interesting that Zachary Taylor's father was a Non-Conformist; +see <i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked</i>, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318-2_13" id="Footnote_318-2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318-2_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> London, 1697.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318-3_14" id="Footnote_318-3_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318-3_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>The Devil Turned Casuist.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318-4_15" id="Footnote_318-4_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318-4_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack</i>, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318-5_16" id="Footnote_318-5_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318-5_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Taylor replied to Jollie's <i>Vindication of the Surey Demoniack</i> in +1698 with a pamphlet entitled <i>Popery, Superstition, Ignorance and +Knavery ... very fully proved ... in the Surey Imposture</i>. Then +came <i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked</i>, by the unknown writer, "N. N.," +whose views we give in the text. Taylor seems to have answered in +a letter to "N. N." which called forth a scathing reply (1698) in <i>The +Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Farther Vindication of the Dissenters....</i> +Taylor's reply, which came out in 1699, was entitled <i>Popery, Superstition, +Ignorance, and Knavery Confess'd and fully Proved on the +Surey Dissenters....</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319-1_17" id="Footnote_319-1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319-1_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> "N. N." <i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked</i>. The Rev. Alexander +Gordon, in his article on Zachary Taylor, <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i>, says that +Carrington probably wrote this book. This seems impossible. The +author of the book, in speaking of Mr. Jollie, Mr. R. Fr. [Frankland], +and Mr. O. H. [Oliver Heywood], refers to Mr. C. as having "exposed +himself in so many insignificant Fopperies foisted into his Narrative"—proof +enough that Carrington did not write <i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319-2_18" id="Footnote_319-2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319-2_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Several dissenting clergymen had opposed the publication of <i>The +Surey Demoniack</i>, and had sought to have it suppressed. See <i>The Lancashire +Levite Rebuked</i>, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321-1_19" id="Footnote_321-1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321-1_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> For an account of this case see Francis Hutchinson, <i>Historical Essay +on Witchcraft</i> (London, 1718), 43. Hutchinson had made an investigation +of the case when in Bury, and he had also Holt's notes of the +trial.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321-2_20" id="Footnote_321-2_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321-2_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Hutchinson had Holt's notes on this case, as on the preceding; <i>ibid.</i>, +45. Blackburne's letter is printed in <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 1st series, XI, +498-499, and reprinted in Brand, <i>Popular Antiquities</i> (1905), II, 648-649.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322-1_21" id="Footnote_322-1_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322-1_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> See <i>The Tryal of Richard Hathaway, ... For endeavouring to +take away the Life of Sarah Morduck, For being a Witch ...</i> (London, +1702), and <i>A Full and True Account of the Apprehending and +Taking of Mrs. Sarah Moordike, ... accused ... for having Bewitched +one Richard Hetheway ...</i>; see also Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, 224-228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323-1_22" id="Footnote_323-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323-2_23" id="Footnote_323-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A somewhat similar case at Hammersmith met with the same treatment, +if the pamphlet account may be trusted. Susanna Fowles pretended +to be possessed in such a way that she could not use the name of +God or Christ. The application of a red-hot iron to her head in the +midst of her fits was drastic but effectual. She cried out "Oh Lord," +and so proved herself a "notorious Lyar." She was sent to the house +of correction, where, reports the unfeeling pamphleteer, "She is now +beating hemp." Another pamphlet, however, gives a very different +version. According to this account, Susan, under Papist influences, +pretended to be possessed in such a way that she was continually blaspheming. +She was indicted for blasphemy, fined, and sentenced to +stand in the pillory. (For the graphic titles of these contradictory pamphlets +and of a folio broadside on the same subject, see appendix A, § 7).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323-3_24" id="Footnote_323-3_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323-3_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Probably not by any court verdict, but through the privy council.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324-1_25" id="Footnote_324-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See J. C. Cox, <i>Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals</i> (London, +1890), II, 90.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324-2_26" id="Footnote_324-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Jane Wenham</i> (broadside); see also <i>A Full and Impartial Account +of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis'd by Jane Wenham +...</i> (London, 1712).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325-1_27" id="Footnote_325-1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325-1_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> This narrative is given in great detail in <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>. +It is of course referred to in nearly all the other pamphlets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326-1_28" id="Footnote_326-1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326-1_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Jane Wenham (broadside) see also <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, +12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326-2_29" id="Footnote_326-2_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326-2_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Jane Wenham (broadside); see also <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, +10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326-3_30" id="Footnote_326-3_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326-3_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Jane Wenham (broadside); see also <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, +14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326-4_31" id="Footnote_326-4_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326-4_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326-5_32" id="Footnote_326-5_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326-5_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> It was suggested by some who did not believe Jane guilty, that she +confessed from unhappiness and a desire to be out of the world, <i>Witchcraft +Farther Display'd. Containing (I) An Account of the Witchcraft +practis'd by Jane Wenham, ... An Answer to ... Objections against +the Being and Power of Witches ...</i> (London, 1712), 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327-1_33" id="Footnote_327-1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327-1_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327-2_34" id="Footnote_327-2_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327-2_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>An Account of the Tryal, Examination and Condemnation of Jane +Wenham.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327-3_35" id="Footnote_327-3_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327-3_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328-1_36" id="Footnote_328-1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328-1_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>A Full and Impartial Account</i>, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328-2_37" id="Footnote_328-2_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328-2_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328-3_38" id="Footnote_328-3_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328-3_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> For this story I have found no contemporary testimony. The earliest +source that I can find is Alexander Chalmers's <i>Biographical Dictionary</i> +(London, 1812-1827), XXV, 248 (<i>s. v.</i> Powell).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328-4_39" id="Footnote_328-4_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328-4_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> After her release she was taken under the protection of Colonel +Plummer of Gilston, who had followed the trial. Hutchinson, <i>Historical +Essay on Witchcraft</i>, 130. On his death she was supported by the +Earl and Countess of Cowper, and lived until 1730. Robert Clutterbuck, +<i>History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford</i> (London, +1815-1827), II, 461, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329-1_40" id="Footnote_329-1_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329-1_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Witchcraft Farther Displayed</i>, introduction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329-2_41" id="Footnote_329-2_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329-2_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> See the dedication to Justice Powell in <i>The Case of the Hertfordshire +Witchcraft Consider'd</i> (London, 1712).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329-3_42" id="Footnote_329-3_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329-3_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <i>A Full Confutation of Witchcraft: More particularly of the Depositions +against Jane Wenham.... In a Letter from a Physician in +Hertfordshire, to his Friend in London</i> (London, 1712).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329-4_43" id="Footnote_329-4_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329-4_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider'd.</i> For more as +to these discussions see below, ch. XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330-1_44" id="Footnote_330-1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330-1_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> It seems, however, that the efforts of Lady Frances —— to +bring about Jane's execution in spite of the judge were feared by Jane's +friends. See <i>The Impossibility of Witchcraft, ... In which the Depositions +against Jane Wenham ... are Confuted ...</i> (London, 1712), +2d ed. (in the Bodleian), 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330-2_45" id="Footnote_330-2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330-2_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> See Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 35,838, f. 404.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330-3_46" id="Footnote_330-3_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330-3_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> They could "get no blood of them by Scratching so they used great +pins and such Instruments for that purpose."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331-1_47" id="Footnote_331-1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331-1_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> See <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Various</i>, I, 160; see also C. J. +Bilson, <i>County Folk Lore, Leicestershire and Rutland</i> (Folk Lore Soc., +1895), 51-52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331-2_48" id="Footnote_331-2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331-2_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <i>The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in the year 1699. +Being the narrative of the Rev. J. Boys ...</i> (London, 1901).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332-1_49" id="Footnote_332-1_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332-1_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> By some Parker is given the credit. I cannot find the original +authority.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333-1_50" id="Footnote_333-1_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333-1_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Inderwick, <i>Sidelights on the Stuarts</i>, 174, 175.</p></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">The Close of the Literary Controversy.</h3> + + +<p>In the last chapter we mentioned the controversy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> +over Jane Wenham. In attempting in this chapter to +show the currents and cross-currents of opinion during +the last period of witch history in England, we cannot +omit some account of the pamphlet war over the Hertfordshire +witch. It will not be worth while, however, +to take up in detail the arguments of the upholders +of the superstition. The Rev. Mr. Bragge was clearly +on the defensive. There were, he admitted sadly, +"several gentlemen who would not believe that there are +any witches since the time of our Saviour Jesus Christ." +He struck the same note when he spoke of those who +disbelieved "on the prejudices of education only." +With great satisfaction the clergyman quoted the decision +of Sir Matthew Hale in 1664.<a name="FNanchor_334-1_1" id="FNanchor_334-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_334-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>The opinions of the opposition are more entertaining, +if their works did not have so wide a sale. The physician +who wrote to his friend in London poked fun +at the witchmongers. It was dangerous to do so, he admitted, +"especially in the Country, where to make the +least Doubt is a Badge of Infidelity."<a name="FNanchor_334-2_2" id="FNanchor_334-2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_334-2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> As for him, he +envied the privileges of the town. He proceeded to +take up the case of Anne Thorne. Her seven-minute +mile run with a broken knee was certainly puzzling. +"If it was only a violent Extention of the Rotula, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>something might be allow'd: but it is hard to tell what +this was, your Country Bone-Setters seldom plaguing +their heads with Distinctions."<a name="FNanchor_335-1_3" id="FNanchor_335-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_335-1_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The "Viciousness of +Anne Thorn's opticks,"<a name="FNanchor_335-2_4" id="FNanchor_335-2_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_335-2_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> the silly character of the +clergyman's evidence, and the spiritual juggles at exorcism,<a name="FNanchor_335-3_5" id="FNanchor_335-3_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_335-3_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +all these things roused his merriment. As +for Jane's confession, it was the result of ensnaring +questions.<a name="FNanchor_335-4_6" id="FNanchor_335-4_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_335-4_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> He seemed to hold the clergy particularly +responsible for witch cases and advised them to be +more conversant with the history of diseases and to +inquire more narrowly into the physical causes of +things.</p> + +<p>A defender of Justice Powell, probably Henry Stebbing, +later an eminent divine but now a young Cambridge +master of arts, entered the controversy. He +was not altogether a skeptic about witchcraft in general, +but his purpose was to show that the evidence +against Jane Wenham was weak. The two chief witnesses, +Matthew Gilston and Anne Thorne, were +"much disturbed in their Imaginations." There were +many absurdities in their stories. He cited the story +of Anne Thorne's mile run in seven minutes. Who +knew that it was seven minutes? There was no one +timing her when she started. How was it known that +she went half a mile? And, supposing these narratives +were true, would they prove anything? The +writer took up piece after piece of the evidence in this +way and showed its absurdity. Some of his criticisms +are amusing—he attacked silly testimony in such a +solemn way—yet he had, too, his sense of fun. It had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>been alleged, he wrote, that the witch's flesh, when +pricked, emitted no blood, but a thin watery matter. +"Mr. Chauncy, it is like, expected that Jane Wenham's +Blood shou'd have been as rich and as florid as +that of Anne Thorne's, or of any other Virgin of about +16. He makes no difference, I see, between the Beef +and Mutton Regimen, and that of Turnips and Water-gruel."<a name="FNanchor_336-1_7" id="FNanchor_336-1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_336-1_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +Moreover, he urges, it is well known that +fright congeals the blood.<a name="FNanchor_336-2_8" id="FNanchor_336-2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_336-2_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>We need not go further into this discussion. Mr. +Bragge and his friends re-entered the fray at once, and +then another writer proved with elaborate argument +that there had never been such a thing as witchcraft. +The controversy was growing dull, but it had not been +without value. It had been, on the whole, an unconventional +discussion of the subject and had shown very +clearly the street-corner point of view. But we must +turn to the more formal treatises. Only three of them +need be noticed, those of Richard Baxter, John +Beaumont, and Richard Boulton. All of these writers +had been affected by the accounts of the Salem witchcraft +in New England. The opinions of Glanvill and +Matthew Hale had been carried to America and now +were brought back to fortify belief in England. Richard +Baxter was most clearly influenced by the accounts +of what had happened in the New World. The Mathers +were his friends and fellow Puritans, and their testimony +was not to be doubted for a minute. But +Baxter needed no convincing. He had long preached +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>and written about the danger of witches. In a sermon +on the Holy Ghost in the fifties he had shown a wide +acquaintance with foreign works on demonology.<a name="FNanchor_337-1_9" id="FNanchor_337-1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_337-1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> In +a <i>Defence of the Christian Religion</i>,<a name="FNanchor_337-2_10" id="FNanchor_337-2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_337-2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> written several +years later, he recognized that the malice of the accusers +and the melancholy of the accused were +responsible for some cases, but such cases were +exceptions. If any one doubted that there were +<i>bona fide</i> cases, let him talk to the judges and ministers +yet living in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex. They could +tell him of many of the confessions made in the Hopkins +period. Baxter had not only talked on witchcraft +with Puritan ministers, but had corresponded as well +with Glanvill, with whom, although Glanvill was an +Anglican, he seems to have been on very friendly +terms.<a name="FNanchor_337-3_11" id="FNanchor_337-3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_337-3_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Nor is it likely that in the many conversations +he held with his neighbor, Sir Matthew Hale,<a name="FNanchor_337-4_12" id="FNanchor_337-4_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_337-4_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> the evidence +from witchcraft for a spiritual world had been +neglected. The subject must have come up in his +conversations with another friend, Robert Boyle.<a name="FNanchor_337-5_13" id="FNanchor_337-5_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_337-5_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +Boyle's interest in such matters was of course a scientific +one. Baxter, like Glanvill, looked at them from +a religious point of view. In the classic <i>Saint's Everlasting +Rest</i> he drew his fourth argument for the fu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>ture +happiness and misery of man from the Devil's +compact with witches.<a name="FNanchor_338-1_14" id="FNanchor_338-1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_338-1_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> To this point he reverted in +his <i>Dying Thoughts</i>. His <i>Certainty of the World of +Spirits</i>, in which he took up the subject of witchcraft +in more detail, was written but a few months before +his death. "When God first awakened me, to think +with preparing seriousness of my Condition after +Death, I had not any observed Doubts of the Reality +of Spirits.... But, when God had given me peace +of Conscience, Satan Assaulted me with those worse +Temptations.... I found that my Faith of Supernatural +Revelation must be more than a Believing +Man and that if it had not a firm foundation, ... +even sure Evidence of Verity, ... it was not like ... +to make my Death to be safe and comfortable.... +I tell the Reader, that he may see why I have taken +this Subject as so necessary, why I am ending my Life +with the publication of these Historical Letters and +Collections, which I dare say have such Evidence as +will leave every Sadduce that readeth them, either +convinced, or utterly without excuse."<a name="FNanchor_338-2_15" id="FNanchor_338-2_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_338-2_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>By the "Collection" he meant, of course, the narratives +brought out in his <i>Certainty of the World of +Spirits</i>—published in 1691. It is unnecessary to review +its arguments here. They were an elaboration of those +already used in earlier works. Too much has been +made of this book. Baxter had the fever for publication. +It was a lean year when he dashed off less +than two works. His wife told him once that he +would write better if he wrote less. Probably she +was thinking of his style, and she was doubtless right. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>But it was true, too, of his thinking; and none of his +productions show this more than his hurried book on, +spirits and witches.<a name="FNanchor_339-1_16" id="FNanchor_339-1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_339-1_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>Beaumont and Boulton may be passed over quickly. +Beaumont<a name="FNanchor_339-2_17" id="FNanchor_339-2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_339-2_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> had read widely in the witch literature of +England and other countries;<a name="FNanchor_339-3_18" id="FNanchor_339-3_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_339-3_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> he had read indeed +with some care, as is evidenced by the fact that he had +compared Hopkins's and Stearne's accounts of the +same events and found them not altogether consistent. +Nevertheless Beaumont never thought of questioning +the reality of witchcraft phenomena, and his chief aim +in writing was to answer <i>The World Bewitched</i>, the +great work of a Dutch theologian, Balthazar Bekker, +"who laughs at all these things of this Nature as done +by Humane contrivance."<a name="FNanchor_339-4_19" id="FNanchor_339-4_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_339-4_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Bekker's bold book was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>indeed gaining wide notice; but this reply to it was +entirely commonplace. Richard Boulton, sometime of +Brasenose College, published ten years later, in 1715, +<i>A Compleat History of Magic</i>. It was a book thrown +together in a haphazard way from earlier authors, and +was written rather to sell than to convince. Seven +years later a second edition was brought out, in which +the writer inserted an answer to Hutchinson.</p> + +<p>Before taking up Hutchinson's work we shall turn +aside to collect those stray fragments of opinion that +indicate in which direction the wind was blowing. +Among those who wrote on nearly related topics, one +comparatively obscure name deserves mention. Dr. +Richard Burthogge published in 1694 an <i>Essay upon +Reason and the Nature of Spirits</i>, a book which was +dedicated to John Locke. He touched on witchcraft +in passing. "Most of the relations," he wrote, "do, +upon impartial Examination, prove either Impostures +of Malicious, or Mistakes of Ignorant and Superstitious +persons; yet some come so well Attested that it +were to bid defiance to all Human Testimony to refuse +them belief."<a name="FNanchor_340-1_20" id="FNanchor_340-1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_340-1_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>This was the last stand of those who still believed. +Shall we, they asked, discredit all human testimony? +It was practically the belief of Bishop William Lloyd +of Worcester, who, while he urged his clergy to give +up their notions about witches, was inclined to believe +that the Devil still operates in the Gentile world and +among the Pagans.<a name="FNanchor_340-2_21" id="FNanchor_340-2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_340-2_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Joseph Addison was equally +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>unwilling to take a radical view. "There are," he wrote +in the <i>Spectator</i> for July 14, 1711, "some opinions +in which a man should stand neuter.... It is with this +temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft.... +I endeavour to suspend my belief till I hear +more certain accounts.... I believe in general that +there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft; but +at the same time can give no credit to any particular +instance of it."<a name="FNanchor_341-1_22" id="FNanchor_341-1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_341-1_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The force of credulity among the +country people he fully recognized. His Sir Roger de +Coverley, who was a justice of the peace, and his chaplain +were, he said, too often compelled to put an end +to the witch-swimming experiments of the people.</p> + +<p>If this was belief, it was at least a harmless sort. +It was almost exactly the position of James Johnstone, +former secretary for Scotland, who, writing from +London to the chancellor of Scotland, declared his belief +in the existence of witches, but called attention to +the fact that the parliaments of France and other judicatories +had given up the trying of them because it +was impossible to distinguish possession from "nature +in disorder."<a name="FNanchor_341-2_23" id="FNanchor_341-2_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_341-2_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>But there were those who were ready to assert a +downright negative. The Marquis of Halifax in the +<i>Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections</i> +which he wrote (or, at least, completed) in 1694, +noted "It is a fundamental ... that there were witches—much +shaken of late."<a name="FNanchor_341-3_24" id="FNanchor_341-3_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_341-3_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Secretary of State Vernon +and the Duke of Shrewsbury were both of them skep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>tical +about the confessions of witches.<a name="FNanchor_342-1_25" id="FNanchor_342-1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_342-1_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Sir Richard +Steele lampooned the belief. "Three young ladies of +our town," he makes his correspondent relate, "were +indicted for witchcraft. One by spirits locked in a +bottle and magic herbs drew hundreds of men to her; +the second cut off by night the limbs of dead bodies +and, muttering words, buried them; the third moulded +pieces of dough into the shapes of men, women, and +children and then heated them." They "had nothing +to say in their own defence but downright denying the +facts, which," the writer remarks, "is like to avail +very little when they come upon their trials." "The +parson," he continued, "will believe nothing of all this; +so that the whole town cries out: 'Shame! that one of +his cast should be such an atheist.'"<a name="FNanchor_342-2_26" id="FNanchor_342-2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_342-2_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>The parson had at length assimilated the skepticism +of the jurists and the gentry. It was, as has been said, an +Anglican clergyman who administered the last great +blow to the superstition. Francis Hutchinson's <i>Historical +Essay on Witchcraft</i>, published in 1718 (and +again, enlarged, in 1720), must rank with Reginald +Scot's <i>Discoverie</i> as one of the great classics of English +witch literature. Hutchinson had read all the accounts +of trials in England—so far as he could find them—and +had systematized them in chronological order, so +as to give a conspectus of the whole subject. So nearly +was his point of view that of our own day that it would +be idle to rehearse his arguments. A man with warm +sympathies for the oppressed, he had been led probably +by the case of Jane Wenham, with whom he had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>talked, to make a personal investigation of all cases +that came at all within the ken of those living. Whoever +shall write the final story of English witchcraft +will find himself still dependent upon this eighteenth-century +historian.</p> + +<p>Hutchinson's work was the last chapter in the witch +controversy. There was nothing more to say.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334-1_1" id="Footnote_334-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Witchcraft Farther Displayed.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334-2_2" id="Footnote_334-2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334-2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>A Full Confutation of Witchcraft</i>, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335-1_3" id="Footnote_335-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335-1_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335-2_4" id="Footnote_335-2_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335-2_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335-3_5" id="Footnote_335-3_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335-3_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335-4_6" id="Footnote_335-4_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335-4_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 23-24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336-1_7" id="Footnote_336-1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336-1_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider'd</i>, 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336-2_8" id="Footnote_336-2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336-2_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> If certain phrases may be trusted, this writer was interested in the +case largely because it had become a cause of sectarian combat and he +hoped to strike at the church.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337-1_9" id="Footnote_337-1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337-1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See Baxter's <i>Works</i> (London, 1827-1830), XX, 255-271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337-2_10" id="Footnote_337-2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337-2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See <i>ibid.</i>, XXI, 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337-3_11" id="Footnote_337-3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337-3_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> W. Orme in his <i>Life of Richard Baxter</i> (London, 1830), I, 435, +says that the Baxter MSS. contain several letters from Glanvill to +Baxter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337-4_12" id="Footnote_337-4_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337-4_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>See Memoirs of Richard Baxter</i> by Dr. Bates (in <i>Biographical +Collections, or Lives and Characters from the Works of the Reverend +Mr. Baxter and Dr. Bates</i>, 1760), II, 51, 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337-5_13" id="Footnote_337-5_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337-5_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 26; see also Baxter's <i>Dying Thoughts</i>, in <i>Works</i>, XVIII, 284, +where he refers to the Demon of Mascon, a story for which Boyle, as +we have seen, had stood sponsor in England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338-1_14" id="Footnote_338-1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338-1_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Ch. VII, sect. iv, in <i>Works</i>, XXII, 327.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338-2_15" id="Footnote_338-2_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338-2_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Certainty of the World of Spirits</i> (London, 1691), preface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339-1_16" id="Footnote_339-1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339-1_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Two other collectors of witch stories deserve perhaps a note here, +for each prefaced his collection with a discussion of witchcraft. The +London publisher Nathaniel Crouch, who wrote much for his own press +under the pseudonym of "R. B." (later expanded to "Richard Burton"), +published as early as 1688 (not 1706, as says the <i>Dict. Nat. +Biog.</i>) <i>The Kingdom of Darkness: or The History of Dæmons, Specters, +Witches, ... Containing near Fourscore memorable Relations, ... Together +with a Preface obviating the common Objections and Allegations +of the Sadduces [sic] and Atheists of the Age, ... with Pictures.</i> +Edward Stephens, first lawyer, then clergyman, but always a pamphleteer, +brought out in 1693 <i>A Collection of Modern Relations concerning +Witches and Witchcraft</i>, to which was prefaced Sir Matthew Hale's +<i>Meditations concerning the Mercy of God in preserving us from the +Malice and Power of Evil Angels</i> and a dissertation of his own on +<i>Questions concerning Witchcraft</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339-2_17" id="Footnote_339-2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339-2_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>An Historical, Physiological, and Theological Treatise of Spirits, +Apparitions, Witchcraft and other Magical Practices</i> (London, 1705). +Dedicated to "John, Earl of Carbury."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339-3_18" id="Footnote_339-3_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339-3_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See for example, <i>ibid.</i>, 63, 70, 71, 75, 130-135, 165, 204, 289, 306.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339-4_19" id="Footnote_339-4_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339-4_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Balthazar Bekker's <i>De Betoverde Weereld</i> (Leeuwarden and Amsterdam, +1691-1693), was a most telling attack upon the reality of witchcraft, +and, through various translations, was read all over Europe. +The first part was translated and published in London in 1695 as +<i>The World Bewitched</i>, and was republished in 1700 as <i>The World +Turn'd upside down</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340-1_20" id="Footnote_340-1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340-1_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Essay upon Reason and the Nature of Spirits</i>, 195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340-2_21" id="Footnote_340-2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340-2_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> G. P. R. James, ed., <i>Letters Illustrative of the Reign of William +III, ... addressed to the Duke of Shrewsbury, by James Vernon, Esq.</i> +(London, 1841), II, 302-303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341-1_22" id="Footnote_341-1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341-1_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Spectator</i>, no. 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341-2_23" id="Footnote_341-2_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341-2_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIV, 3, p. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341-3_24" id="Footnote_341-3_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341-3_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> H. C. Foxcroft, ed., <i>Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, Marquis +of Halifax</i> (London, 1898), II, 493.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342-1_25" id="Footnote_342-1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342-1_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> G. P. R. James, ed., <i>op. cit.</i>, II, 300. Shrewsbury's opinion may be +inferred from Vernon's reply to him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342-2_26" id="Footnote_342-2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342-2_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See the <i>Tatler</i>, no. 21, May 28, 1709.</p></div> + + + + + +<hr /> +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></div> +<h2 class="chapter3"><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDICES.</h2> + + +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="APPENDIX_A" id="APPENDIX_A"></a>A.—PAMPHLET LITERATURE.</h2> + + +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 1.—Witchcraft under Elizabeth (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. II</span>).</h3> + +<p>A large part of the evidence for the trials of Elizabeth's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> +reign is derived from the pamphlets issued soon after the +trials. These pamphlets furnish a peculiar species of historical +material, and it is a species so common throughout the history +of English witchcraft that it deserves a brief examination +in passing. The pamphlets were written of course by +credulous people who easily accepted what was told them and +whose own powers of observation were untrained. To get +at the facts behind their marvellous accounts demands the +greatest care and discrimination. Not only must the miraculous +be ruled out, but the prejudices of the observer must +be taken into account. Did the pamphleteer himself hear +and see what he recorded, or was his account at second hand? +Did he write soon after the events, when they were fresh in +his memory? Does his narrative seem to be that of a painstaking, +careful man or otherwise? These are questions to +be answered. In many instances, however, the pamphlets were +not narrative in form, but were merely abstracts of the court +proceedings and testimony. In this case, too, care must be +taken in using them, for the testimony damaging to the accused +was likely to be accented, while the evidence on the other +side, if not suppressed, was not emphasized. In general, however, +these records of depositions are sources whose residuum +of fact it is not difficult to discover. Both in this and in the +narrative material the most valuable points may be gleaned +from the incidental references and statements. The writer +has made much use of this incidental matter. The position +of the witch in her community, the real ground of the feeling +against her upon the part of her neighbors, the way in which +the alarm spread, the processes used to elicit confession—in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>ferences +of this sort may, the writer believes, be often made +with a good deal of confidence. We have taken for granted +that the pamphlets possess a substratum of truth. This may +not always be the case. The pamphleteer was writing to sell. +A fictitious narrative of witchcraft or of a witch trial was +almost as likely to sell as a true narrative. More than once +in the history of witch literature absolutely imaginary stories +were foisted upon the public. It is necessary to be constantly +on guard against this type of pamphlet. Fortunately nine-tenths +of the witch accounts are corroborated from other +sources. The absence of such corroboration does not mean +that an account should be barred out, but that it should be subjected +to the methods of historical criticism, and that it should +be used cautiously even if it pass that test. Happily for us, the +plan of making a witch story to order does not seem to have +occurred to the Elizabethan pamphleteers. So far as we know, +all the pamphlets of that time rest upon actual events. We +shall take them up briefly in order.</p> + +<p>The first was <i>The examination and confession of certaine +Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex before the +Quenes maiesties Judges, the XXVI daye of July Anno 1566</i>. +The only original copy of this pamphlet is in the Lambeth +Palace library at London and its binding bears the initials of +R. B. [Richard Bancroft]. The versified introduction is signed +by John Phillips, who presumably was the author. The pamphlet—a +black letter one—was issued, in three parts, from the +press of William Powell at London, two of them on August +13, the third on August 23, 1566. It has since been reprinted +by H. Beigel for the Philobiblon Society, London, 1864-1865. +It gives abstracts of the confessions and an account of the +court interrogatories. There is every reason to believe that +it is in the main an accurate account of what happened at the +Chelmsford trials in 1566. Justice Southcote, Dr. Cole, Master +Foscue, and Attorney-General Gerard are all names we can +identify. Moreover, the one execution narrated is confirmed +by the pamphlet dealing with the trials at Chelmsford in 1579.</p> + +<p>The second pamphlet, also in black letter, deals with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> +Abingdon cases of 1579. It is entitled <i>A Rehearsall both +straung and true of hainous and horrible actes committed by +Elizabeth Stile, alias Rockingham, Mother Dutten, Mother +Devell, Mother Margaret. Fower notorious Witches apprehended +at Winsore in the Countie of Barks, and at Abington +arraigned, condemned and executed on the 28 daye of Februarie +last anno 1579</i>. This pamphlet finds confirmation by a +reference in the privy council records to the same event (<i>Acts +P. C.</i>, n. s., XI, 22). Reginald Scot, in his <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, +17, 543, mentions another, a book of "Richard Gallis +of Windesor" "about certaine witches of Windsore executed +at Abington." This would seem to have been a different account +of the Abingdon affair, because Scot also on p. 51 speaks +of some details of the Abingdon affair as to be found "in a +little pamphlet of the acts and hanging of foure witches in +anno 1579." It is perhaps the one described by Lowndes, <i>Bibliographer's +Manual of English Literature</i> (p. 2959) under the +title <i>The horrible Acts of Eliz. Style, alias Rockingham, Mother +Dutton, Mother Dovell, and Mother Margaret, 4 Witches executed +at Abingdon, 26 Feb. upon Richard Galis</i> (London, +1579) or that mentioned in the Stationers' <i>Registers</i>, II (London, +1875), 352, under date of May 4, 1579, as <i>A brief treatise +conteyninge the most strange and horrible crueltye of Elizabeth +Sule</i> [sic] <i>alias Bockingham</i> [sic] <i>and hir confederates +executed at Abingdon upon Richard Galis etc.</i></p> + +<p>The second Chelmsford trials were also in 1579. The pamphlet +account was called <i>A Detection of damnable driftes, practised +by three Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde in Essex at +the last Assizes there holden, whiche were executed in Aprill +1579</i>. There are three references in this pamphlet to people +mentioned in the earlier Chelmsford pamphlet, so that the two +confirm each other.</p> + +<p>The third Chelmsford trials came in 1589 and were narrated +in a pamphlet entitled <i>The apprehension and confession of +three notorious Witches arraigned and by Justice condemnede +in the Countye of Essex the 5 day of Julye last past</i>. Joan +Cunny was convicted, largely on the evidence of the two +bastard sons of one of her "lewde" daughters. The eldest +of these boys, who was not over ten or twelve, told the court +that he had seen his grandmother cause an oak to be blown +up by the roots during a calm. The charges against Joan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> +Upney concerned chiefly her dealings with toads, those against +Joan Prentice, who lived in an Essex almshouse, had to do +with ferrets. The three women seem to have been brought first +before justices of the peace and were then tried together and +condemned by the "judge of the circuit." This narrative has +no outside confirmation, but the internal evidence for its +authenticity is good. Three men mentioned as sheriff, justice, +and landowner can all be identified as holding those respective +positions in the county.</p> + +<p>The narrative of the St. Oses case appeared in 1582. It +was called <i>A True and just Recorde of the Information, Examination +and Confession of all the Witches taken at St. Oses +in the countie of Essex: whereof some were executed, and +other some entreated according to the determination of Lawe.... +Written orderly, as the cases were tryed by evidence, by +W. W.</i> The pamphlet is merely a record of examinations. It +is dedicated to Justice Darcy; and from slips, where the judge +in describing his action breaks into the first person, it is evident +that it was written by the judge himself. Scot, who wrote +two years later, had read this pamphlet, and knew of the case +(<i>Discoverie</i>, 49, 542). There are many references to the case by +later writers on witchcraft.</p> + +<p>Eleven years later came the trials which brought out the +pamphlet: <i>The most strange and admirable discoverie of the +three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed +at the last assises at Huntingdon ...</i>, London, 1593. Its contents +are reprinted by Richard Boulton, in his <i>Compleat History +of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft</i> (London, 1715), I, 49-152. +There can be no doubt as to the historical character of +this pamphlet. The Throckmortons, the Cromwells, and the +Pickerings were all well known in Huntingdonshire. An agreement +is still preserved in the archives of the Huntingdon corporation +providing that the corporation shall pay £40 to +Queen's College, Cambridge, in order that a sermon shall be +preached on witchcraft at Huntingdon each Lady day. This +was continued for over two hundred years. One of the last sermons +on this endowment was preached in 1795 and attacked +the belief in witchcraft. The record of the contract is still +kept in Queen's College, Brit. Mus. MSS., 5,849, fol. 254. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> +mention of the affair see Darrel, <i>Detection of that sinnful +... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 36, 39, 110; also Harsnett, +<i>Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises</i>, 93, 97. Several Jacobean +writers refer to the case. What seems to be another edition +is in the Bodleian: <i>A True and Particular Observation of a +notable Piece of Witchcraft</i>—which is the inside heading of the +first edition. The text is the same, but there are differences in +the paging.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most curious of all Elizabethan witch pamphlets +is entitled <i>The most wonderfull and true Storie of a certaine +Witch named Alse Gooderidge of Stapenhill, who was arraigned +and convicted at Darbie, at the Assizes there. As +also a true Report of the strange Torments of Thomas Darling, +a boy of thirteen years of age, that was possessed by the +Devill, with his horrible Fittes and terrible apparitions by him +uttered at Burton upon Trent, in the Countie of Stafford, and +of his marvellous deliverance</i>, London, 1597. There are two +copies of this—the only ones of which the writer knows—in +Lambeth Palace library. They are exactly alike, page for +page, except for the last four lines of the last page, where the +wording differs. The pamphlet is clearly one written by John +Denison as an abstract of an account by Jesse Bee. Harsnett, +<i>Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel</i>, 266-269, +tells how these two books were written. Denison is quoted +as to certain insertions made in his manuscript after it left +his hands, insertions which are to be found, he says, on pages +15 and 39. The insertions complained of by Denison are indeed +to be found on the pages indicated of <i>The most wonderfull +and true Storie of ... Alse Gooderidge</i>, thus establishing his +authorship of the pamphlet. The account by Bee, of which +this is an abstract, I have not seen. Alse Gooderidge was put +through many examinations and finally died in prison. "She +should have been executed, but that her spirit killed her in +prison." John Darrel was one of those who sought to help +the boy who had been bewitched by Alice. Darrel, however, +receives only passing mention from the author of this pamphlet. +The narrative does not agree very well in matters +of detail with the Darrel tracts, although in the main outlines +it is similar to them. It is very crudely put together, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> +while it was doubtless a sincere effort to present the truth, +must not be too implicitly depended upon.</p> + +<p>Two pamphlets are hidden away in the back of the <i>Triall of +Maist. Dorrel</i> (see below, § 2). The first (pp. 92-98) deals +with the trial of Doll Bartham of Shadbrook in Suffolk. She +was tried by the chief justice and hanged the 12th of July, +1599. The second (pp. 99-103) narrates the trial of Anne +Kerke before "Lorde Anderson," the 30th of December, 1599. +She also went to the gallows.</p> + +<p>There are other pamphlets referred to in Lowndes, etc., +which we have been unable to find. One of them is <i>The Arraignment +and Execution of 3 detestable Witches, John Newell, +Joane his wife, and Hellen Calles; two executed at Barnett, +and one at Braynford, 1 Dec. 1595</i>. A second bears the +title <i>The severall Facts of Witchcrafte approved on Margaret +Haskett of Stanmore</i>. 1585. Black letter. Another pamphlet +in the same year deals with what is doubtless the same case. +It is <i>An Account of Margaret Hacket, a notorious Witch, who +consumed a young Man to Death, rotted his Bowells and back +bone asunder, who was executed at Tiborn, 19 Feb. 1585</i>. +London, 1585. A fourth pamphlet is <i>The Examination and +Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold, alias +Whitecote, alias Glastonbury, at the Assise of Burntwood in +July, 1574: who was hanged for Witchcraft at Barking</i>. 1575.</p> + +<p>The title <i>The case of Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder</i>, +created by Hazlitt, <i>Collections and Notes</i>, 1867-1876, out of the +mention by Holinshed of a printed account, means but <i>The +discloysing</i>, etc. (see p. 351). The case—see Holinshed, +<i>Chronicles</i> (London, 1808), IV, 325, and Stow, Annales (London, +1631), p. 678, who put the affair in 1574—was not of +witchcraft, but of pretended possession. See above, p. 59.</p> + +<p>To this period must belong also <i>A true report of three +Straunge Witches, lately found at Newnham Regis</i>, mentioned +by Hazlitt (<i>Handbook</i>, p. 230). I have not seen it; but the +printer is given as "J. Charlewood," and Charlewood printed +between 1562 and 1593. The <i>Stationers' Registers</i>, 1570-1587 +(London; Shakespeare Soc., 1849), II, 32, mention also the +licensing in 1577 of <i>The Booke of Witches</i>—whatever that +may have been.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span></p> + +<p>Among pamphlets dealing with affairs nearly related to +witchcraft may be mentioned the following:</p> + +<p><i>A short treatise declaringe the detestable wickednesse of +magicall sciences, as Necromancie, Coniuration of Spirites, Curiouse +Astrologie and such lyke.... Made by Francis Coxe.</i> [London, +1561.] Black letter. Coxe had been pardoned by the Queen.</p> + +<p><i>The Examination of John Walsh, before Master Thomas +Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, +bishop of Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng +Wytch-crafte and Sorcerye, in the presence of divers +gentlemen and others, the XX of August, 1566.</i> 1566. Black +letter. John Ashton (<i>The Devil in Britain and America</i>, London, +1896, p. 202) has called this the "earliest English printed +book on witchcraft pure and simple"; but it did not deal with +witches and it was preceded by the first Chelmsford pamphlet.</p> + +<p><i>The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the +devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London.</i> [1574.] +Black letter. The case is that of Agnes Bridges and Rachel +Pinder, mentioned above (pp. 59, 351).</p> + +<p><i>The Wonderfull Worke of God shewed upon a Chylde, +whose name is William Withers, being in the Towne of Walsam +... Suffolk, who, being Eleven Yeeres of age, laye in a +Traunce the Space of Tenne Days ... and hath continued the +Space of Three Weeks</i>, London, 1581. Written by John Phillips. +This pamphlet is mentioned by Sidney Lee in his article +on John Phillips in the <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i></p> + +<p><i>A Most Wicked worke of a Wretched Witch (the like +whereof none can record these manie yeares in England) +wrought on the Person of one Richard Burt, servant to +Maister Edling of Woodhall in the Parrish of Pinner in the +Countie of Myddlesex, a myle beyond Harrow. Latelie committed +in March last, An. 1592 and newly recognized acording +to the truth. By G. B. maister of Artes.</i> [London, 1593.] +See Hazlitt, Collections and Notes, 1867-1877. The pamphlet +may be found in the library of Lambeth Palace. The story +is a curious one; no action seems to have been taken.</p> + +<p><i>A defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, +not hitherto confuted by the penne of any man; which being +eyther uppon the warrant and authority of old paynted bookes, +expositions of dreames, oracles, revelations, invocations of +damned spirits ... have been causes of great disorder in the +commonwealth and chiefly among the simple and unlearned +people.</i> Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Northampton,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> +was the author of this "defensative." It appeared about 1581-1583, +and was revised and reissued in 1621.</p> + +<p>Three Elizabethan ballads on witches are noted by Hazlitt, +<i>Bibliographical Collections and Notes</i>, 2d series (London, +1882): <i>A warnynge to wytches</i>, published in 1585, <i>The scratchinge +of the wytches</i>, published in 1579, and <i>A lamentable songe +of Three Wytches of Warbos, and executed at Huntingdon</i>, +published in 1593. Already in 1562-3 "a boke intituled <i>A +poosye in forme of a visyon, agaynste wytche Crafte, and +Sosyrye</i>," written "in myter" by John Hall, had been published +(<i>Stationers' Registers</i>, 1557-1570, p. 78).</p> + +<p>Some notion of the first step in the Elizabethan procedure +against a witch may be gathered from the specimens of "indictments" +given in the old formula book of William West, +<i>Simboleography</i> (pt. ii, first printed in 1594). Three specimens +are given; two are of indictments "For killing a man by +witchcraft upon the statute of Anno 5. of the Queene," the +third is "For bewitching a Horse, whereby he wasted and became +worse." As the documents in such bodies of models are +usually genuine papers with only a suppression of the names, +it is probable that the dates assigned to the indictments noted—the +34th and 35th years of Elizabeth—are the true ones, and +that the initials given, "S. B. de C. in comit. H. vidua," +"Marg' L. de A. in com' E. Spinster," and "Sara B. de C. +in comitatu Eb. vidua," are those of the actual culprits and +of their residences. Yorkshire is clearly one of the counties +meant. It was, moreover, West's own county.</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 2.—The Exorcists (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. IV</span>).</h3> + +<p>The account of Elizabethan exorcism which we have given +is necessarily one-sided. It deals only with the Puritan movement—if +Darrel's work may be so called—and does not treat +the Catholic exorcists. We have omitted the performances of +Father Weston and his coadjutors because they had little or no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> +relation to the subject of witchcraft. Those who wish to +follow up this subject can find a readable discussion of it by +T. G. Law in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i> for March, 1894, "Devil +Hunting in Elizabethan England."</p> + +<p>It is a rather curious fact that the Puritan exorcist has +never, except for a few pages by S. R. Maitland, in his <i>Puritan +Thaumaturgy</i> (London, 1842), been made a study. Without +doubt he, his supporters, and his enemies were able between +them to make a noise in their own time. To be convinced of +that one need only read the early seventeenth-century dramatists. +It may possibly be that Darrel was not the mere impostor +his enemies pictured him. Despite his trickery it may be +that he had really a certain hypnotic control over William +Somers and perhaps over Katherine Wright.</p> + +<p>Whatever else Darrel may have been, he was a ready pamphleteer. +His career may easily be traced in the various +brochures put forth, most of them from his own pen. Fortunately +we have the other side presented by Samuel Harsnett, +and by two obscure clergymen, John Deacon and John Walker. +The following is a tentative list of the printed pamphlets dealing +with the subject:</p> + +<p><i>A Breife Narration of the possession, dispossession, and +repossession of William Sommers: and of some proceedings +against Mr. John Dorrel preacher, with aunsweres to such +objections.... Together with certaine depositions taken at +Nottingham ..., 1598.</i> Black letter. This was written either +by Darrel or at his instigation.</p> + +<p><i>An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, +a yong man of the towne of Nottingham.... By John +Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus....</i> [1599?] Black letter. +This work is undated, but, to judge from the preface, it was +probably written soon after both Darrel and More were imprisoned. +It is quite clear too that it was written before Harsnett's +<i>Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel</i>, +for Darrel says that he hears that the Bishop of London is +writing a book against him.</p> + +<p><i>The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences +against Allegations.... 1599.</i> This seems written by Darrel +himself; but the Huth catalogue (V, 1643) ascribes it to James +Bamford.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>A brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers. +Written by John Dorrel, a faithful Minister of the +Gospell, but published without his knowledge.... 1599.</i></p> + +<p><i>A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, +Bacheler of Artes ...</i>, London, 1599. The "Epistle to the +Reader" is signed "S. H.," <i>i. e.</i>, Samuel Harsnett, then chaplain +to the Bishop of London. The book is an exposure, in 324 +pages, of Darrel's various impostures, and is based mainly on +the depositions given in his trial at Lambeth.</p> + +<p><i>A True Narration of the strange and grevous Vexation by +the Devil of seven persons in Lancashire ..., 1600.</i> Written by +Darrel. Reprinted in 1641 with the title <i>A True Relation of +the grievous handling of William Somers of Nottingham</i>. +It is again reprinted in the <i>Somers Tracts</i>, III, and is the +best known of the pamphlets.</p> + +<p><i>A True Discourse concerning the certaine possession and +dispossession of 7 persons in one familie in Lancashire, which +also may serve as part of an Answere to a fayned and false +Discoverie.... By George More, Minister and Preacher of +the Worde of God ..., 1600.</i> More was Darrel's associate +in the Cleworth performances and suffered imprisonment with +him.</p> + +<p><i>A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous +discours of Samuel Harshnet.</i> 1600. This is Darrel's most +abusive work. He takes up Harsnett's points one by one and +attempts to answer them.</p> + +<p><i>Dialogicall Discourses of Spirits and Divels by John Deacon +[and] John Walker, Preachers</i>, London, 1601.</p> + +<p><i>A Summarie Answere to al the Material Points in any of +Master Darel his bookes, More especiallie to that one Booke +of his, intituled, the Doctrine of the Possession and Dispossession +of Demoniaks out of the word of God. By John Deacon +[and] John Walker, Preachers</i>, London, 1601. The "one +Booke" now answered is a part of Darrel's <i>A True Narration</i>. +The <i>Discourses</i> are dedicated to Sir Edmund Anderson and +other men eminent in the government and offer in excuse that +"the late bred broyles ... doe mightilie over-runne the whole +Realme."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>A Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses, written by +John Deacon and John Walker ... By John Darrell, minister +of the gospel ..., 1602.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Replie of John Darrell, to the Answer of John Deacon, +and John Walker concerning the doctrine of the Possession +and Dispossession of Demoniakes ..., 1602.</i></p> + +<p>Harsnett's second work must not be omitted from our account. +In his famous <i>Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures</i>, +1603 and 1605, he shows to even better advantage than +in the earlier work his remarkable talents as an exposer and +gives freer play to his wicked humor.</p> + +<p><i>A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover's Vexation, and +of her deliverance by the meanes of fastinge and prayer.... +By John Swan, student in Divinitie ..., 1603.</i></p> + +<p>This narrates another exorcism in which a number of clergymen +participated. Swan, the author, in his dedication to the +king, takes up the cudgels vigorously against Harsnett. Elizabeth +Jackson was accused of having bewitched her, and was +indicted. Justice Anderson tried the case and showed himself +a confirmed believer in witchcraft. But the king was of +another mind and sent, to examine the girl, a physician, Dr. +Edward Jorden, who detected her imposture and explained +it in his pamphlet, <i>A briefe discourse of a disease called the +Suffocation of the Mother, Written uppon occasion which +hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possession of an +evill spirit....</i> (London, 1603). He was opposed by the +author of a book still unprinted, "Mary Glover's late woefull +case ... by Stephen Bradwell.... 1603" (Brit. Mus., Sloane, +831). But see also below, appendix C, under 1602-1603.</p> + +<p>One other pamphlet dealing with this same episode must +be mentioned. Hutchinson, <i>Historical Essay on Witchcraft</i>, +and George Sinclar, <i>Satan's Invisible World Discovered</i> (Edinburgh, +1685), had seen an account by the Rev. Lewis Hughes +(in his <i>Certaine Grievances</i>) of the case of Mother Jackson, who +was accused of bewitching Mary Glover. Although Hughes's +tale was not here published until 1641-2, the events with which +it deals must all have taken place in 1602 or 1603. Sir John +Crook is mentioned as recorder of London and Sir Edmund +Anderson as chief justice. "R. B.," in <i>The Kingdom of Darkness</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> +(London, 1688), gives the story in detail, although misled, +like Hutchinson, into assigning it to 1642.</p> + +<p>It remains to mention certain exorcist pamphlets of which +we possess only the titles:</p> + +<p><i>A history of the case of Catherine Wright.</i> No date; written +presumably by Darrel and given by him to Mrs. Foljambe, +afterwards Lady Bowes. See C. H. and T. Cooper, <i>Athenae +Cantabrigienses</i> (Cambridge, 1858-1861), II, 381.</p> + +<p>Darrel says that there was a book printed about "Margaret +Harrison of Burnham-Ulpe in Norfolk and her vexation by +Sathan." See <i>Detection of that sinnfull ... discours of Samuel +Harshnet</i>, 36, and <i>Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses</i>, 54.</p> + +<p><i>The strange Newes out of Sommersetshire, Anno 1584, +tearmed, a dreadfull discourse of the dispossessing of one +Margaret Cooper at Ditchet, from a devill in the likenes of a +headlesse beare.</i> Referred to by Harsnett, <i>Discovery of the +Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel</i>, 17.</p> + +<p>A ballad seems to have been written about the Somers +case. Extracts from it are given by Harsnett, <i>ibid.</i>, 34, 120.</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 3.—James I and Witchcraft and Notable Jacobean Cases +(<span style="font-variant: normal;">see chs. V, VI</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by an Innkeepers +Wife called Annis Dell, and her Sonne George Dell, +Foure Yeares since.... With the severall Witch-crafts and +most damnable practices of one Iohane Harrison and her +Daughter, upon several persons men and women at Royston, +who were all executed at Hartford the 4 of August last past +1606.</i> So far as the writer knows, there is no contemporary +reference to confirm the executions mentioned in this pamphlet. +The story itself is a rather curious one with a certain +literary flavor. This, however, need not weigh against it. It +seems possible rather than probable that the narrative is a +fabrication.</p> + +<p><i>The severall notorious and lewd Cosenages of Iohn West +and Alice West, falsely called the King and Queene of Fayries +... convicted ... 1613</i>, London, 1613. This might pass in catalogues<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> +as a witch pamphlet. It is an account of two clever +swindlers and of their punishment.</p> + +<p><i>The Witches of Northamptonshire.</i></p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="witches"> +<tr> +<td><i>Agnes Browne</i><br /> +<i>Joane Vaughan</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size: 200%;">}</span></td> +<td><i>Arthur Bill</i><br /> +<i>Hellen Jenkenson</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size: 400%;">}</span></td> +<td><i>Witches.</i></td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="center" style="margin-right: 7em; margin-top: -1.5em;"><i>Mary Barber</i></div> +<div class="nanospace"> </div> + +<p><i>Who were all executed at Northampton the 22. of +July last. 1612.</i></p> + +<p>Concerning this same affair there is an account in MS., +"A briefe abstract of the arraignment of nine witches at +Northampton, July 21, 1621" (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 972). This +narrative has, in common with the printed narrative, the story +of Mistress Belcher's and Master Avery's sufferings from +witchcraft. It mentions also Agnes Brown and Joan Brown +(or Vaughan) who, according to the other account, were +hanged. All the other names are different. But it is nevertheless +not hard to reconcile the two accounts. The "briefe +abstract" deals with the testimony taken before the justices +of the peace on two charges; the <i>Witches of Northamptonshire</i> +with the final outcome at the assizes. Three of those finally +hanged were not concerned in the first accusations and were +brought in from outlying districts. On the other hand, most +of those who were first accused by Belcher and Avery seem +not to have been indicted.</p> + +<p><i>The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of Lancaster. +With the Arraignement and Triall of Nineteene notorious +Witches, at the Assizes and generall Gaole deliverie, holden +at the Castle of Lancaster, upon Munday, the seventeenth of +August last, 1612. Before Sir James Altham, and Sir Edward +Bromley.... Together with the Arraignement and Triall of +Jennet Preston, at the Assizes holden at the Castle of Yorke, the +seven and twentieth day of Julie last past.... Published and +set forth by commandement of his Majesties Justices of Assize +in the North Parts. By Thomas Potts, Esq.</i> London, 1613. +Reprinted by the Chetham Soc, J. Crossley, ed., 1845. Thomas +Potts has given us in this book the fullest of all English witch +accounts. No other narrative offers such an opportunity to +examine the character of evidence as well as the court pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>cedure. +Potts was very superstitious, but his account is in +good faith.</p> + +<p><i>Witches Apprehended, Examined and Executed, for notable +villanies by them committed both by Land and Water. With +a strange and most true trial how to know whether a woman +be a Witch or not.</i> London, 1613. Bodleian.</p> + +<p><i>A Booke of the Wytches Lately condemned and executed at +Bedford, 1612-1613.</i> I have seen no copy of this pamphlet, +the title of which is given by Edward Arber, <i>Transcript of +the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554-1640</i> +(London, 1875-1894), III, 234b.... The story is without +doubt the same as that told in the preceding pamphlet. We +have no absolutely contemporary reference to this case. Edward +Fairfax, who wrote in 1622, had heard of the case—probably, +however, from the pamphlet itself. But we can be quite +certain that the narrative was based on an actual trial and +conviction. Some of the incidental details given are such as +no fabricator would insert.</p> + +<p>In the MS., "How to discover a witch," Brit. Mus., Add. +MSS., 36,674, f. 148, there is a reference to a detail of Mother +Sutton's ordeal not given in the pamphlet I have used.</p> + +<p><i>A Treatise of Witchcraft.... With a true Narration of the +Witchcrafts which Mary Smith, wife of Henry Smith, Glover, +did practise ... and lastly, of her death and execution ... By +Alexander Roberts, B. D. and Preacher of Gods Word at Kings-Linne +in Norffolke.</i> London, 1616. The case of Mary Smith +is taken up at p. 45. This account was dedicated to the +"Maior" and aldermen, etc., of "Kings Linne" and was no +doubt semi-official. It is reprinted in Howell, <i>State Trials</i>, II.</p> + +<p><i>The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret +and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower neere Bever +Castle: executed at Lincolne, March 11, 1618. Who were specially +arraigned and condemned before Sir Henry Hobart and +Sir Edward Bromley, Judges of Assize, for confessing themselves +actors in the destruction of Henry, Lord Rosse, with +their damnable practises against others the Children of the +Right Honourable Francis Earle of Rutland. Together with +the severall Examinations and Confessions of Anne Baker, +Joan Willimot, and Ellen Greene, Witches in Leicestershire</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> +London, 1619. For confirmation of the Rutlandshire witchcraft +see <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1619-1623</i>, 129; <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. +Reports, Rutland</i>, IV, 514. See also <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, +LXXIV, pt. ii, 909: "On the monument of Francis, sixth earl +of Rutland, in Bottesford church, Leicestershire, it is recorded +that by his second lady he had 'two Sons, both which died +in their infancy by wicked practices and sorcery.'"</p> + +<p>Another pamphlet seems to have been issued about the affair: +<i>Strange and wonderfull Witchcrafts, discovering the +damnable Practises of seven Witches against the Lives of certain +noble Personages and others of this Kingdom; with an approved +Triall how to find out either Witch or any Apprentise +to Witchcraft, 1621.</i> Another edition in 1635; see Lowndes.</p> + +<p><i>The Wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer ... late of +Edmonton, her conviction, condemnation and Death.... +Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the word of God, +and her continuall Visiter in the Gaole of Newgate.... 1621.</i> +The Reverend Mr. Goodcole wrote a plain, unimaginative story, +the main facts of which we cannot doubt. They are supported +moreover by Dekker and Ford's play, <i>The Witch of Edmonton</i>, +which appeared within a year. Goodcole refers to the +"ballets" written about this case.</p> + +<p><i>The Boy of Bilson: or A True Discovery of the Late Notorious +Impostures of Certaine Romish Priests in their pretended +Exorcisme, or expulsion of the Divell out of a young Boy, +named William Perry....</i> London, 1622. Preface signed by +Ryc. Baddeley. This is an account of a famous imposture. +It is really a pamphlet against the Catholic exorcists. On pp. +45-54 is given a reprint of the Catholic account of the affair; +on pp. 55-75 the exposure of the imposture is related. We can +confirm this account by Arthur Wilson, <i>Life and Reign of +James I</i>, 107-111, and by John Webster, <i>Displaying of Supposed +Witchcraft</i>, 274.</p> + +<p><i>A Discourse of Witchcraft As it was acted in the Family +of Mr. Edward Fairfax of Fuystone in the County of York, +in the year 1621.</i> Edited by R. Monckton Milnes (the later +Lord Houghton) for vol. V of <i>Miscellanies of the Philobiblon +Soc.</i> (London, 1858-1859, 299 pages). The editor says +the original MS. is still in existence. Edward Fairfax was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> +natural brother of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton. He translated +into English verse Tasso's <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>, and +accomplished other poetic feats. His account of his children's +bewitchment and of their trances is very detailed. The book +was again published at Harrogate in 1882, under the title of +<i>Dæmonologia: a Discourse on Witchcraft</i>, with an introduction +and notes by William Grainge.</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 4.—Matthew Hopkins (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. VIII</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>A Most certain, strange and true Discovery of a Witch, Being +overtaken by some of the Parliament Forces, as she was +standing on a small Planck-board and sayling on it over the +River of Newbury, Together with the strange and true manner +of her death.</i> 1643. The tale told here is a curious one. The soldiers +saw a woman crossing the river on a plank, decided that +she was a witch, and resolved to shoot her. "She caught +their bullets in her hands and chew'd them." When the +"veines that crosse the temples of the head" were scratched +so as to bleed, she lost her power and was killed by a pistol +shot just below the ear. It is not improbable that this distorted +tale was based on an actual happening in the war. See +<i>Mercurius Civicus</i>, September 21-28, 1643.</p> + +<p><i>A Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-craft ... together +with the Confessions of many of those executed since May +1645.... By John Stearne ...</i> London, 1648.</p> + +<p><i>The Examination, Confession, Triall, and Execution of +Joane Williford, Joan Cariden and Jane Hott: who were executed +at Feversham, in Kent ... all attested under the hand +of Robert Greenstreet, Maior of Feversham.</i> London, 1645. +This pamphlet has no outside evidence to confirm its statements, +but it has every appearance of being a true record of +examinations.</p> + +<p><i>A true and exact Relation of the severall Informations, +Examinations, and Confessions of the late Witches arraigned +and executed in the County of Essex. Who were arraigned +and condemned at the late Sessions, holden at Chelmesford before +the Right Honorable Robert, Earle of Warwicke, and +severall of his Majesties Justices of Peace, the 29 of July 1645....</i> +London, 1645. Reprinted London, 1837; also embodied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> +in Howell, <i>State Trials</i>. This is a very careful statement of the +court examinations, drawn up by "H. F." In names and details +it has points of coincidence with the <i>True Relation</i> about +the Bury affair; see next paragraph below. It is supported, +too, by Arthur Wilson's account of the affair; see Francis +Peck, <i>Desiderata Curiosa</i> (ed. of London, 1779), II, 476.</p> + +<p><i>A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches +at St. Edmundsbury, 27th August 1645.... As also a List of +the names of those that were executed.</i> London, 1645. There +is abundance of corroborative evidence for the details given +in this pamphlet. It fits in with the account of the Essex +witches; its details are amplified by Stearne, <i>Confirmation +of Witchcraft</i>, Clarke, <i>Lives of sundry Eminent Persons</i>, John +Walker, <i>Suffering of the Clergy ... in the Grand Rebellion</i> +(London, 1714), and others. The narrative was written in the +interim between the first and second trials at Bury.</p> + +<p><i>Strange and fearfull newes from Plaisto in the parish of +Westham neere Bow foure miles from London</i>, London, 1645. +Unimportant.</p> + +<p><i>The Lawes against Witches and Conjuration, and Some brief +Notes and Observations for the Discovery of Witches. Being +very Usefull for these Times wherein the Devil reignes and +prevailes.... Also The Confession of Mother Lakeland, who +was arraigned and condemned for a Witch at Ipswich in Suffolke.... +By authority.</i> London, 1645. The writer of this pamphlet +acknowledges his indebtedness to Potts, <i>Discoverie of +Witches in the countie of Lancaster</i> (1613), and to Bernard, +<i>Guide to Grand Jurymen</i> (1627). These books had been used +by Stearne and doubtless by Hopkins. This pamphlet expresses +Hopkins's ideas, it is written in Hopkins's style—so far as we +know it—and it may have been the work of the witchfinder +himself. That might explain, too, the "by authority" of the +title.</p> + +<p><i>Signes and Wonders from Heaven.... Likewise a new discovery +of Witches in Stepney Parish. And how 20. Witches +more were executed in Suffolk this last Assise. Also how the +Divell came to Soffarn to a Farmers house in the habit of a +Gentlewoman on horse backe.</i> London, [1645]. Mentions the +Chelmsford, Suffolk, and Norfolk trials.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>The Witches of Huntingdon, their Examinations and Confessions ...</i>, +London, 1646. This work is dedicated to the +justices of the peace for the county of Huntingdon; the dedication +is signed by John Davenport. Three of the witches whose +accusations are here presented are mentioned by Stearne (<i>Confirmation +of Witchcraft</i>, 11, 13, 20-21, 42).</p> + +<p><i>The Discovery of Witches: in answer to severall Queries, +lately Delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of +Norfolk. And now published by Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder. +For the Benefit of the Whole Kingdome....</i> London, +1647. Hopkins's and Stearne's accounts fit into each other and +are the two best sources for ch. VIII.</p> + +<p><i>The [D]Ivell in Kent, or His strange Delusions at Sandwitch</i>, +London, 1647. Has nothing to do with witches; shows +the spirit of the times.</p> + +<p><i>A strange and true Relation of a Young Woman possest +with the Devill. By name Joyce Dovey dwelling at Bewdley +neer Worcester ... as it was certified in a Letter from Mr. +James Dalton unto Mr. Tho. Groome, Ironmonger over against +Sepulchres Church in London.... Also a Letter from Cambridge, +wherein is related the late conference between the +Devil (in the shape of a Mr. of Arts) and one Ashbourner, +a Scholler of S. Johns Colledge ... who was afterwards +carried away by him and never heard of since onely his Gown +found in the River</i>, London, 1647. In the first narrative a +woman after hearing a sermon fell into fits. The second narrative +was probably based upon a combination of facts and +rumor.</p> + +<p><i>The Full Tryals, Examination and Condemnation of Four +Notorious Witches, At the Assizes held in Worcester on Tuseday +the 4th of March ... As also Their Confessions and last +Dying Speeches at the place of Execution, with other Amazing +Particulars ...</i>, London, printed by "I. W.," no date. +Another edition of this pamphlet (in the Bodleian) bears +the date 1700 and was printed for "J. M." in Fleet street. This +is a most interesting example of a made-to-order witch pamphlet. +The preface makes one suspect its character: "the +following narrative coming to my hand." The accused were +Rebecca West, Margaret Landis, Susan Cook, and Rose Hal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>lybread. +Now, all these women were tried at Chelmsford in +1645, and their examinations and confessions printed in <i>A +true and exact Relation</i>. The wording has been changed a +little, several things have been added, but the facts are similar; +see <i>A true and exact Relation</i>,10, 11, 13-15, 27. When +the author of the Worcester pamphlet came to narrate the +execution he wandered away from his text and invented some +new particulars. The women were "burnt at the stak." They +made a "yelling and howling." Two of them were very +"stubborn and refractory." <i>Cf.</i> below, § 10.</p> + +<p><i>The Devill seen at St. Albans, Being a true Relation How +the Devill was seen there in a Cellar, in the likenesse of a Ram; +and how a Butcher came and cut his throat, and sold some of +it, and dressed the rest for himselfe, inviting many to supper</i> +..., 1648. A clever lampoon.</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 5.—Commonwealth and Protectorate (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. IX</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>The Divels Delusions or A faithfull relation of John Palmer +and Elizabeth Knott two notorious Witches lately condemned +at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer in St. Albans ...</i>, 1649. +The narrative purports to be taken from a letter sent from +St. Alban's. It deals with the practices of two good witches +who were finally discovered to be black witches. The tale has +no outside confirmation.</p> + +<p><i>Wonderfull News from the North, Or a True Relation of +the Sad and Grievous Torments Inflicted upon the Bodies of +three Children of Mr. George Muschamp, late of the County of +Northumberland, by Witchcraft, ... As also the prosecution +of the sayd Witches, as by Oaths, and their own Confessions +will appear and by the Indictment found by the Jury against +one of them, at the Sessions of the Peace held at Alnwick, +the 24 day of April 1650</i>, London, 1650. Preface signed: +"Thine, Mary Moore." This pamphlet bears all through the +marks of a true narrative. It is written evidently by a friend +of the Mistress Muschamp who had such difficulty in persuading +the north country justices, judges, and sheriffs to act. +The names and the circumstances fit in with other known facts.</p> + +<p><i>The strange Witch at Greenwich haunting a Wench</i>, 1650. +Unimportant.</p> + +<p><i>A Strange Witch at Greenwich</i>, 1650.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span></p> + +<p>The last two pamphlets are mentioned by Lowndes. The +second pamphlet I have not seen; as, however, Lowndes cites +the title of the first incorrectly, it is very possible that he has +given two titles for the same pamphlet.</p> + +<p><i>The Witch of Wapping, or an Exact and Perfect Relation +of the Life and Devilish Practises of Joan Peterson, who dwelt +in Spruce Island, near Wapping; Who was condemned for +practising Witchcraft, and sentenced to be Hanged at Tyburn, +on Munday the 11th of April 1652</i>, London, 1652.</p> + +<p><i>A Declaration in Answer to several lying Pamphlets concerning +the Witch of Wapping, ... shewing the Bloudy Plot +and wicked Conspiracy of one Abraham Vandenhemde, Thomas +Crompton, Thomas Collet, and others</i>, London, 1652. This +pamphlet is described above, pp. 214-215.</p> + +<p><i>The Tryall and Examinations of Mrs. Joan Peterson before +the Honourable Bench at the Sessions house in the Old Bayley +yesterday.</i> [1652]. This states the case against Mistress Joan +in the title, but (unless the British Museum copy is imperfect) +gives no details.</p> + +<p><i>Doctor Lamb's Darling, or Strange and terrible News from +Salisbury; Being A true, exact, and perfect Relation of the +great and wonderful Contract and Engagement made between +the Devil, and Mistris Anne Bodenham; with the manner +how she could transform herself into the shape of a Mastive +Dog, a black Lyon, a white Bear, a Woolf, a Bull, and a Cat.... +The Tryal, Examinations, and Confession ... before the +Lord Chief Baron Wild.... By James [Edmond?] Bower, +Cleric</i>, London, 1653. This is the first account of the affair and +is a rather crude one.</p> + +<p><i>Doctor Lamb Revived, or, Witchcraft condemn'd in Anne +Bodenham ... who was Arraigned and Executed the Lent +Assizes last at Salisbury, before the Right Honourable the +Lord Chief Baron Wild, Judge of the Assize.... By Edmond +Bower, an eye and ear Witness of her Examination and +Confession</i>, London, 1653. Bower's second and more detailed +account. It is dedicated to the judge by the writer, who +had a large part in the affair and frequently interviewed the +witch. He does not present a record of examinations, but +gives a detailed narrative of the entire affair. He throws out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> +hints about certain phases of the case and rouses curiosity +without satisfying it. His story of Anne Bodenham is, however, +clear and interesting. The celebrated Aubrey refers to +the case in his <i>Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme</i>, 261. +His account, which tallies well with that of Bower, he seems +to have derived from Anthony Ettrick "of the Middle Temple," +who was a "curious observer of the whole triall."</p> + +<p><i>A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment, +Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of six Witches at +Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes there held in July, Fryday +30, this present year, 1652. Before the Right Honourable, +Peter Warburton.... Collected from the Observations of E. +G. Gent, a learned person, present at their Conviction and +Condemnation, and digested by H. F. Gent.</i>, London, 1652. +It is a pity that the digesting was not omitted. The account, +however, is trustworthy. Mention is made of this trial by +Elias Ashmole in his <i>Diary</i> (London, 1717) and by <i>The Faithful +Scout</i>, July 30-August 7, 1652.</p> + +<p><i>The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women +bewitched in Yorkshire: Who camming to the Assizes at York +to give in Evidence against the Witch after a most horrible +noise to the terror and amazement of all the beholders, did +vomit forth before the Judges, Pins, wool.... Also a most +true Relation of a young Maid ... who ... did ... vomit +forth wadds of straw, with pins a crosse in them, iron Nails, +Needles, ... as it is attested under the hand of that most famour +Phisitian Doctor Henry Heers, ... 1658.</i> In the Bodleian. +The writer of this pamphlet had little information to +give and seems to have got it at second or third hand.</p> + +<p><i>A more Exact Relation of the most lamentable and horrid +Contract which Lydia Rogers, living in Pump-Ally in Wapping, +made with the Divel.... Together with the great pains +and prayers of many eminent Divines, ... 1658.</i> In the Bodleian. +This is a "Relation of a woman who heretofore professing +Religion in the purity thereof fel afterwards to be a +sectary, and then to be acquainted with Astrologers, and afterwards +with the Divel himself." A poor woman "naturally +inclin'd to melancholy" believed she had made a contract with +the Devil. "Many Ministers are dayly with her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>The Snare of the Devill Discovered: Or, A True and perfect +Relation of the sad and deplorable Condition of Lydia +the Wife of John Rogers House Carpenter, living in Greenbank +in Pumpe alley in Wappin.... Also her Examination +by Mr. Johnson the Minister of Wappin, and her Confession. +As also in what a sad Condition she continues....</i> London, +1658. Another tract against the Baptists. In spite of Lydia +Rogers's supposed contract with the Devil, she does not seem +to have been brought into court.</p> + +<p><i>Strange and Terrible Newes from Cambridge, being A true +Relation of the Quakers bewitching of Mary Philips ... into +the shape of a Bay Mare, riding her from Dinton towards the +University. With the manner how she became visible again +... in her own Likeness and Shape, with her sides all rent and +torn, as if they had been spur-galled, ... and the Names of the +Quakers brought to tryal on Friday last at the Assises held at +Cambridge ...</i>, London, 1659. This is mentioned by John +Ashton in the bibliographical appendix to his <i>The Devil in +Britain and America</i>.</p> + +<p><i>The Just Devil of Woodstock, or a true narrative of the severall +apparitions, the frights and punishments inflicted upon the +Rumpish commissioners sent thither to survey the manors +and houses belonging to His Majesty.</i> 1660. Wood, <i>Athenae +Oxonienses</i> (ed. of 1817), III, 398, ascribes this to Thomas +Widdowes. It was on the affair described in this pamphlet +that Walter Scott based his novel <i>Woodstock</i>. The story +given in the pamphlet may be found in Sinclar's <i>Satan's Invisible +World Discovered</i>. The writer has not seen the original +pamphlet.</p> + + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 6.—Charles II and James II (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. XI</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>The Power of Witchcraft, Being a most strange but true +Relation of the most miraculous and wonderful deliverance of +one Mr. William Harrison of Cambden in the County of +Gloucester, Steward to the Lady Nowel ...</i>, London, 1662.</p> + +<p><i>A True and Perfect Account of the Examination, Confession, +Tryal, Condemnation and Execution of Joan Perry and +her two Sons ... for the supposed murder of William Harrison, +Gent ...</i>, London, 1676. These are really not witchcraft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> +pamphlets. Mr. Harrison disappears, three people are charged +with his murder and hanged. Mr. Harrison comes back from +Turkey in two years and tells a story of his disappearance +which leads to the supposition that he was transported thither +by witchcraft.</p> + +<p><i>A Tryal of Witches at the assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds +for the County of Suffolk; on the tenth day of March, 1664</i>, +London, 1682; another edition, 1716. The writer of this tract +writes in introducing it: "This Tryal of Witches hath lain a +long time in a private Gentleman's Hands in the Country, it +being given to him by the Person that took it in the Court for +his own satisfaction." This is the much quoted case before +Sir Matthew Hale. The pamphlet presents one of the most +detailed accounts of the court procedure in a witch case.</p> + +<p><i>The Lord's Arm Stretched Out in an Answer of Prayer or a +True Relation of the wonderful Deliverance of James Barrow, +the Son of John Barrow of Olaves Southwark</i>, London, 1664. +This seems to be a Baptist pamphlet.</p> + +<p><i>The wonder of Suffolke, being a true relation of one that +reports he made a league with the Devil for three years, to do +mischief, and now breaks open houses, robs people daily, ... +and can neither be shot nor taken, but leaps over walls fifteen feet +high, runs five or six miles in a quarter of an hour, and sometimes +vanishes in the midst of multitudes that go to take him. +Faithfully written in a letter from a solemn person, dated not +long since, to a friend in Ship-yard, near Temple-bar, and +ready to be attested by hundreds ...</i>, London, 1677. This +is mentioned in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1829, pt. ii, 584. I +have not seen a copy of the pamphlet.</p> + +<p><i>Daimonomageia: a small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases +from Witchcraft and Supernatural Causes.... Being useful +to others besides Physicians, in that it confutes Atheistical, +Sadducistical, and Sceptical Principles and Imaginations ...</i>, +London, 1665. Though its title-page bears no name, the author +was undoubtedly that "William Drage, D. P. [Doctor of +Physic] at Hitchin," in Hertfordshire, to whose larger treatise +on medicine (first printed in 1664 as <i>A Physical Nosonomy</i>, +then in 1666 as <i>The Practice of Physick</i>, and again in 1668 as +<i>Physical Experiments</i>) it seems to be a usual appendage. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> +so, at least, in the Cornell copy of the first edition and in the +Harvard copy of the third, and is so described by the <i>Dict. +Nat. Biog.</i> and by the British Museum catalogue.</p> + +<p><i>Hartford-shire Wonder. Or, Strange News from Ware, +Being an Exact and true Relation of one Jane Stretton ... +who hath been visited in a strange kind of manner by extraordinary +and unusual fits ...</i>, London, 1669. The title +gives the clue to this story. The narrator makes it clear that +a certain woman was suspected of the bewitchment.</p> + +<p><i>A Magicall Vision, Or a Perfect Discovery of the Fallacies +of Witchcraft, As it was lately represented in a pleasant sweet +Dream to a Holysweet Sister, a faithful and pretious Assertor +of the Family of the Stand-Hups, for preservation of the +Saints from being tainted with the heresies of the Congregation +of the Doe-Littles</i>, London, 1673. I have not seen this. +It is mentioned by Hazlitt, <i>Bibliographical Collections</i>, fourth +series, <i>s. v.</i> Witchcraft.</p> + +<p><i>A Full and True Relation of The Tryal, Condemnation, and +Execution of Ann Foster ... at the place of Execution at +Northampton. With the Manner how she by her Malice and +Witchcraft set all the Barns and Corn on Fire ... and bewitched +a whole Flock of Sheep ...</i>, London, 1674. This +narrative has no confirmation from other sources, yet its details +are so susceptible of natural explanation that they warrant +a presumption of its truth.</p> + +<p><i>Strange News from Arpington near Bexby in Kent: Being +a True Narrative of a yong Maid who was Possest with several +Devils ...</i>, London, 1679.</p> + +<p><i>Strange and Wonderful News from Yowell in Surry; Giving +a True and Just Account of One Elisabeth Burgess, Who +was most strangely Bewitched and Tortured at a sad rate</i>, +London, 1681.</p> + +<p><i>An Account of the Tryal and Examination of Joan Buts, +for being a Common Witch and Inchantress, before the Right +Honourable Sir Francis Pemberton, Lord Chief Justice, at +the Assizes ... 1682.</i> Single leaf.</p> + +<p>The four brochures next to be described deal with the same +affair and substantially agree.</p> + +<p><i>The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Three Witches, +viz. Temperance Floyd, Mary Floyd, and Susanna Edwards. +Who were Arraigned at Exeter on the 18th of August, 1682....</i> +London, 1682. Confirmed by the records of the gaol deliveries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> +examined by Mr. Inderwick (<i>Side-Lights on the Stuarts</i>, +p. 192).</p> + +<p><i>A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against +Three Witches, viz. Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and +Susanna Edwards, who were Indicted, Arraigned, and Convicted +at the Assizes holden ... at ... Exon, Aug. 14, 1682. With +their several Confessions ... as also Their ... Behaviour, at +the ... Execution on the Twenty fifth of the said Month</i>, London, +1682. This, the fullest account (40 pp.), gives correctly the +names of these three women, whom I still believe the last put +to death for witchcraft in England.</p> + +<p><i>Witchcraft discovered and punished. Or the Tryals and +Condemnation of three Notorious Witches, who were Tryed +the last Assizes, holden at the Castle of Exeter ... where they +received sentence of Death, for bewitching severall Persons, +destroying Ships at Sea, and Cattel by Land. To the Tune of +Doctor Faustus; or Fortune my Foe.</i> In the Roxburghe Collection +at the British Museum. Broadside. A ballad of 17 +stanzas (4 lines each) giving the story of the affair.</p> + +<p><i>The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary +Lloyd and Susanna Edwards ...; Lately Condemned at +Exeter Assizes; together with a full Account of their first +Agreement with the Devil: With the manner how they prosecuted +their devilish Sorceries ...</i>, London, 1687.</p> + +<p><i>A Full and True Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions +of Oyer and Terminer ... which began at the Sessions House +in the Old Bayley on Thursday, June 1st, and Ended on Fryday, +June 2nd, 1682. Wherein is Contained the Tryal of many +notorious Malefactors ... but more especially the Tryall of +Jane Kent for Witchcraft.</i> This pamphlet is a brief summary +of several cases just finished and has every evidence of being +a faithful account. It is to be found in the library of Lincoln's +Inn.</p> + +<p><i>Strange and Dreadful News from the Town of Deptford in +the County of Kent, Being a Full, True, and Sad Relation of +one Anne Arthur.</i> 1684/5. One leaf, folio.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Strange newes from Shadwell, being a ... relation of the +death of Alice Fowler, who had for many years been accounted +a witch.</i> London, 1685. 4 pp. In the library of the Earl of +Crawford. I have not seen it.</p> + +<p><i>A True Account of a Strange and Wonderful Relation of +one John Tonken, of Pensans in Cornwall, said to be Bewitched +by some Women: two of which on Suspition are committed +to Prison</i>, London, 1686. In the Bodleian. This narrative +is confirmed by Inderwick's records.</p> + +<p><i>News from Panier Alley; or a True Relation of Some +Pranks the Devil hath lately play'd with a Plaster Pot there</i>, +London, 1687. In the Bodleian. A curious tract. No trial.</p> + + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 7.—The Final Decline, Miscellaneous Pamphlets (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see +ch. XIII</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>A faithful narrative of the ... fits which ... Thomas +Spatchet ... was under by witchcraft ..., 1693.</i> Unimportant.</p> + +<p><i>The Second Part of the Boy of Bilson, Or a True and Particular +Relation of the Imposter Susanna Fowles, wife of John +Fowles of Hammersmith in the Co. of Midd., who pretended +herself to be possessed</i>, London, 1698.</p> + +<p><i>A Full and True Account Both of the Life: And also the +Manner and Method of carrying on the Delusions, Blasphemies, +and Notorious Cheats of Susan Fowls, as the same +was Contrived, Plotted, Invented, and Managed by wicked +Popish Priests and other Papists.</i></p> + +<p><i>The trial of Susannah Fowles, of Hammersmith, for blaspheming +Jesus Christ, and cursing the Lord's Prayer ...</i>, London, +1698.</p> + +<p>These three pamphlets tell the story of a woman who was +"an impostor and Notorious Lyar"; they have little to do +with witchcraft. See above, ch. XIII, note 23.</p> + +<p><i>The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in the year +1699. Being the Narrative of the Rev. J. Boys, Minister of +the Parish.</i> Printed from his manuscript in the possession of +the publisher (A. Russell Smith), London, 1901.</p> + +<p><i>A True and Impartial Account of the Dark and Hellish +Power of Witchcraft, Lately Exercised on the Body of the +Reverend Mr. Wood, Minister of Bodmyn. In a Letter from +a Gentleman there, to his Friend in Exon, in Confirmation +thereof</i>, Exeter, 1700.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>A Full and True Account of the Apprehending and Taking +of Mrs. Sarah Moordike, Who is accused for a Witch, Being +taken near Paul's Wharf ... for haveing Bewitched one Richard +Hetheway.... With her Examination before the Right +Worshipful Sir Thomas Lane, Sir Owen Buckingham, and +Dr. Hambleton in Bowe-lane.</i> 1701. This account can be verified +and filled out from the records of the trial of Hathaway, printed +in Howell, <i>State Trials</i>, XIV, 639-696.</p> + +<p><i>A short Account of the Trial held at Surry Assizes, in the +Borough of Southwark; on an Information against Richard +Hathway ... for Riot and Assault</i>, London, 1702.</p> + +<p><i>The Tryal of Richard Hathaway, upon an Information For +being a Cheat and Impostor, For endeavouring to take away +The Life of Sarah Morduck, For being a Witch at Surry +Assizes ...</i>, London, 1702.</p> + +<p><i>A Full and True Account of the Discovering, Apprehending +and taking of a Notorious Witch, who was carried before +Justice Bateman in Well-Close on Sunday, July the 23. Together +with her Examination and Commitment to Bridewel, +Clerkenwel</i>, London, 1704. Signed at the end, "Tho. Greenwel." +Single page.</p> + +<p><i>An Account of the Tryals, Examination, and Condemnation +of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips ..., 1705.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Northamptonshire Witches ..., 1705.</i></p> + +<p>The second of these is the completer account. They are by +the same author and are probably fabrications; see below, § 10.</p> + +<p><i>The Whole Trial of Mrs. Mary Hicks and her Daughter +Elizabeth ..., 1716.</i> See below, § 10.</p> + + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 8.—The Surey Pamphlets (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. XIII</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>The Devil Turned Casuist, or the Cheats of Rome Laid open +in the Exorcism of a Despairing Devil at the House of Thomas +Pennington in Oriel.... By Zachary Taylor, M. A., Chaplain +to the Right reverend Father in God, Nicholas, Lord Bishop +of Chester, and Rector of Wigan</i>, London, 1696.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>The Surey Demoniack, Or an Account of Satan's Strange +and Dreadful Actings, In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale +of Surey, near Whalley in Lancashire. And How he was +Dispossest by Gods blessing on the Fastings and Prayers of +divers Ministers and People</i>, London, 1697. Fishwick, <i>Notebook +of Jollie</i> (Chetham Soc.), p. xxiv says this was written +by Thomas Jollie and John Carrington. The preface is signed +by "Thomas Jolly" and five other clergymen. Probably Jollie +wrote the pamphlet and Carrington revised it. See above, ch. +XIII, note 10. Jollie disclaimed the sole responsibility for it. +See his <i>Vindication</i>, 7. Taylor in <i>The Surey Impostor</i> assumes +that Carrington wrote <i>The Surey Demoniack</i>; see <i>e. g.</i> +p. 21.</p> + +<p><i>The Surey Imposter, being an answer to a late Fanatical +Pamphlet, entituled The Surey Demoniack.</i> By Zachary Taylor. +London, 1697.</p> + +<p><i>A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack as no Imposter: Or, +A Reply to a certain Pamphlet publish'd by Mr. Zach. Taylor, +called The Surey Imposter....</i> By T. J., London, 1698. Written +by Jollie.</p> + +<p><i>Popery, Superstition, Ignorance and Knavery very unjustly +by a letter in the general pretended; but as far as was charg'd +very fully proved upon the Dissenters that were concerned in +the Surey Imposture.</i> 1698. Written by Zachary Taylor.</p> + +<p><i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Vindication of the +Dissenters from Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, +unjustly Charged on them by Mr. Zachary Taylor....</i> London, +1698. Signed "N. N.;" see above ch. XIII, note 17.</p> + +<p><i>The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Farther Vindication</i>, +1698. This seems to have been an answer to a "letter to Mr. +N. N." which Taylor had published. We have, however, no +other mention of such a letter.</p> + +<p><i>Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, Confess'd +and fully Proved on the Surey Dissenters, from a Second +Letter of an Apostate Friend, to Zach. Taylor. To which is +added a Refutation of T. Jollie's Vindication ...</i>, London, +1699. Written by Zachary Taylor.</p> + +<p><i>A Refutation of Mr. T. Jolly's Vindication of the Devil in +Dugdale; Or, The Surey Demoniack</i>, London, 1699.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is not worth while to give any critical appraisement of +these pamphlets. They were all controversial and all dealt with +the case of Richard Dugdale. Zachary Taylor had the best +of it. The Puritan clergymen who backed up Thomas Jollie +in his claims seem gradually to have withdrawn their support.</p> + + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 9.—The Wenham Pamphlets (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. XIII</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>An Account of the Tryal, Examination, and Condemnation +of Jane Wenham, on an Indictment of Witchcraft, for Bewitching +of Matthew Gilston and Anne Thorne of Walcorne, +in the County of Hertford.... Before the Right Honourable +Mr. Justice Powell, and is ordered for Execution on Saturday +come Sevennight the 15th.</i> One page.</p> + +<p><i>A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery +and Witchcraft, Practis'd by Jane Wenham of Walkerne in +Hertfordshire, upon the bodies of Anne Thorn, Anne Street, +&c.... till she ... receiv'd Sentence of Death for the same, +March 4, 1711-12</i>, London, 1712. Anonymous, but confessedly +written by Francis Bragge. 1st ed. in Cornell library and +Brit. Mus.; 2d ed. in Brit. Mus.; 3d ed. in Brit. Mus. (Sloane, +3,943), and Bodleian; 4th ed. in Brit. Mus.; 5th ed. in Harvard +library: all published within the year.</p> + +<p><i>Witchcraft Farther Display'd. Containing (I) An Account +of the Witchcraft practis'd by Jane Wenham of Walkerne, in +Hertfordshire, since her Condemnation, upon the bodies of +Anne Thorne and Anne Street.... (II) An Answer to the +most general Objections against the Being and Power of +Witches: With some Remarks upon the Case of Jane Wenham +in particular, and on Mr. Justice Powel's procedure therein....</i> +London, 1712. Introduction signed by "F. B." [Francis +Bragge], who was the author.</p> + +<p><i>A Full Confutation of Witchcraft: More particularly of the +Depositions against Jane Wenham, Lately Condemned for a +Witch; at Hertford. In which the Modern Notions of Witches +are overthrown, and the Ill Consequences of such Doctrines +are exposed by Arguments; proving that, Witchcraft is Priestcraft.... +In a Letter from a Physician in Hertfordshire, to +his Friend in London.</i> London, 1712.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>The Impossibility of Witchcraft, Plainly Proving, From +Scripture and Reason, That there never was a Witch; and +that it is both Irrational and Impious to believe there ever +was. In which the Depositions against Jane Wenham, Lately +Try'd and Condemn'd for a Witch, at Hertford, are Confuted +and Expos'd</i>, London, 1712. 1st ed. in Brit. Mus.; 2d ed., +containing additional material, in the Bodleian. The author +of this pamphlet in his preface intimates that its substance had +earlier been published by him in the <i>Protestant Post Boy</i>.</p> + +<p><i>The Belief of Witchcraft Vindicated: proving from Scripture, +there have been Witches; and from Reason, that there +may be Such still. In answer to a late Pamphlet, Intituled, +The Impossibility of Witchcraft ...</i>, By G. R., A. M., London, +1712.</p> + +<p><i>The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider'd. Being +an Examination of a Book entitl'd, A Full and Impartial +Account ...</i>, London, 1712. Dedicated to Sir John Powell. +In the Cornell copy of this booklet a manuscript note on the +title-page, in an eighteenth century hand, ascribes it to "The +Rector of Therfield in Hertfordshire, or his Curate," while +at the end of the dedication what seems the same hand has +signed the names, "Henry Stebbing or Thomas Sherlock." +But Stebbing was in 1712 still a fellow at Cambridge, and +Sherlock, later Bishop of London, was Master of the Temple +and Chaplain to Queen Anne. See <i>Dict. Nat. Biog.</i></p> + +<p><i>A Defense of the Proceedings against Jane Wenham, wherein +the Possibility and Reality of Witchcraft are Demonstrated +from Scripture.... In Answer to Two Pamphlets, Entituled: +(I) The Impossibility of Witchcraft, etc. (II) A Full Confutation +of Witchcraft</i>, By Francis Bragge, A. B., ... London, +1712.</p> + +<p><i>The Impossibility of Witchcraft Further Demonstrated, +Both from Scripture and Reason ... with some Cursory +Remarks on two trifling Pamphlets in Defence of the existence +of Witches</i>. By the Author of <i>The Impossibility of Witchcraft</i>, +1712. In the Bodleian.</p> + +<p><i>Jane Wenham</i>. Broadside. The writer of this leaflet +claims to have transcribed his account from an account in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> +"Judge Chancy's own hand". Chauncy was the justice of +the peace who with Bragge stood behind the prosecution.</p> + +<p>It is very hard to straighten out the authorship of these various +pamphlets. The Rev. Mr. Bragge wrote several. The Rev. +Mr. Gardiner and the Rev. Mr. Strutt, who were active in the +case, may have written two of them. The topographer Gough, +writing about 1780, declared that the late Dr. Stebbing had as +a young man participated in the controversy. Francis +Hutchinson was an interested spectator, but probably did not +contribute to the literature of the subject.</p> + +<p>A short secondary account is that of W. B. Gerish, <i>A Hertfordshire +Witch; or the Story of Jane Wenham, the "Wise +Woman of Walkern</i>."</p> + +<p>In the Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 3,943, there is a continuation +of the pamphlet discussion, based chiefly, however, upon +Glanvill and other writers.</p> + + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">§ 10.—Criticism of the Northampton and Huntingdon Pamphlets +of 1705 and 1716 (<span style="font-variant: normal;">see ch. XIII, note 10</span>).</h3> + +<p><i>An Account of The Tryals, Examination and Condemnation +of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips (Two notorious Witches) +on Wednesday the 7th of March 1705, for Bewitching a +Woman, and two children.... With an Account of their +strange Confessions.</i> This is signed, at the end, "Ralph Davis, +March 8, 1705." It was followed very shortly by a completer +account, written after the execution, and entitled:</p> + +<p><i>The Northamptonshire Witches, Being a true and faithful +account of the Births, Educations, Lives, and Conversations +of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips (The two notorious +Witches) That were Executed at Northampton on Saturday, +March the 17th, 1705 ... with their full Confession to the +Minister, and last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution, +the like never before heard of.... Communicated in a Letter +last Post, from Mr. Ralph Davis of Northampton, to Mr. +William Simons, Merchantt in London</i>, London, 1705.</p> + +<p>With these two pamphlets we wish to compare another,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> +which was apparently published in 1716 and was entitled: <i>The +Whole Trial and Examination of Mrs. Mary Hicks and her +Daughter Elizabeth, But of Nine Years of Age, who were +Condemn'd the last Assizes held at Huntingdon for Witchcraft, +and there Executed on Saturday, the 28th of July 1716 +... the like never heard before; their Behaviour with several +Divines who came to converse with 'em whilst under their +sentence of Death; and last Dying Speeches and Confession at +the place of execution</i>, London, 1716. There is a copy in the +Bodleian Library.</p> + +<p>The two Northamptonshire pamphlets and the Huntingdonshire +pamphlet have been set by themselves because they appear +to have been written by one hand. Moreover, it looks very +much as if they were downright fabrications foisted upon the +public by a man who had already in 1700 made to order an +unhistorical pamphlet. To show this, it will be necessary to +review briefly the facts about the Worcester pamphlet described +above, § 4. What seems to be the second edition of a +pamphlet entitled <i>The full Tryalls, Examinations and Condemnations +of Four Notorious Witches, At the Assizes held +at Worcester on Tuseday the 4th of March</i>, was published at +London with the date 1700. It purports to tell the story of one +of the cases that came up during Matthew Hopkins's career in +1645-1647. It has been universally accepted—even by Thomas +Wright, Ashton, W. H. D. Adams, and Inderwick. An examination +shows, however, that it was made over from the +Chelmsford pamphlet of 1645. The author shows little ingenuity, +for he steals not only the confessions of four witches at +that trial, but their names as well. Rebecca West, Margaret +Landis, Susan Cock, and Rose Hallybread had all been hanged +at Chelmsford and could hardly have been rehanged at Worcester. +Practically all that the writer of the Worcester pamphlet +did was to touch over the confessions and add thrilling +details about their executions.</p> + +<p>Now, it looks very much as if the same writer had composed +the Northamptonshire pamphlets of 1705 and the Huntingdonshire +pamphlets of 1716. The verbal resemblances are +nothing less than remarkable. The Worcester pamphlet, in +its title, tells of "their Confessions and Last Dying Speeches +at the place of execution." The second of the two Northamptonshire +pamphlets (the first was issued before the execution) +speaks of "their full Confession to the Minister, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> +last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution." The Huntingdonshire +pamphlet closes the title with "last Dying Speeches +and Confession at the place of Execution." The Worcester +pamphlet uses the phrase "with other amazing Particulars"; +the Northamptonshire pamphlet the phrase "the particulars of +their amazing Pranks." The Huntingdon pamphlet has in this +case no similar phrase but the Huntingdon and Northamptonshire +pamphlets have another phrase in common. The Northamptonshire +pamphlet says: "the like never before heard of"; +the Huntingdon pamphlet says: "the like never heard before."</p> + +<p>These resemblances are in the titles. The Northampton +and the fabricated Worcester pamphlets show other similarities +in their accounts. The Northampton women were so +"hardened in their Wickedness that they Publickly boasted +that their Master (meaning the Devil) would not suffer them +to be Executed but they found him a Lyer." The Worcester +writer speaks of the "Devil who told them to the Last that +he would secure them from Publick Punishment, but now too +late they found him a Lyer as he was from the beginning of +the World." In concluding their narratives the Northamptonshire +and Worcestershire pamphleteers show an interesting +similarity of treatment. The Northampton witches made a +"howling and lamentable noise" on receiving their sentences, +the Worcester women made a "yelling and howling at their +executions."</p> + +<p>These resemblances may be fairly characterized as striking. +If it be asked whether the phrases quoted are not conventional +in witch pamphlets, the answer must be in the negative. So +far as the writer knows, these phrases occur in no other of the +fifty or more witch pamphlets. The word "notorious," which +occurs in the titles of the Worcester and Northampton pamphlets, +is a common one and would signify nothing. The +other phrases mentioned are characteristic and distinctive. +This similarity suggests that the three pamphlets were written +by the same hand. Since we know that one of the three is a +fabrication, we are led to suspect the credibility of the other +two.</p> + +<p>There are, indeed, other reasons for doubting the historicity +of these two. A close scrutiny of the Northampton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> +pamphlet shows that the witchcrafts there described have the +peculiar characteristics of the witchcrafts in the palmy days of +Matthew Hopkins and that the wording of the descriptions is +much the same. The Northampton pamphlet tells of a "tall +black man," who appeared to the two women. A tall black +man had appeared to Rebecca West at Chelmsford in 1645. +A much more important point is that the prisoners at Northampton +had been watched at night in order to keep their imps +from coming in. This night-watching was a process that had +never, so far as our records go, been used since the Hopkins +alarm, of which it had been the characteristic feature. Were +there no other resemblance between the Northampton cases +and those at Chelmsford, this similarity would alone lead us to +suspect the credibility of the Northampton pamphlet. Unfortunately +the indiscreet writer of the Northampton narrative +lets other phrases belonging to 1645 creep into his account.</p> + +<p>When the Northampton women were watched, a "little +white thing about the bigness of a Cat" had appeared. But +a "white thing about the bignesse of a Cat" had appeared to +the watchers at Chelmsford in 1645. This is not all. The +Northampton witches are said to have killed their victims by +roasting and pricking images, a charge which had once been +common, but which, so far as the writer can recall, had not +been used since the Somerset cases of 1663. It was a charge +very commonly used against the Chelmsford witches whom +Matthew Hopkins prosecuted. Moreover the Northampton +witches boasted that "their Master would not suffer them to +be executed." No Chelmsford witch had made that boast; but +Mr. Lowes, who was executed at Bury St. Edmunds (the +Bury trial was closely connected with that at Chelmsford, so +closely that the writer who had read of one would probably +have read of the other), had declared that he had a charm to +keep him from the gallows.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that these are close resemblances both in +characteristic features and in wording. But the most perfect +resemblance is in a confession. The two Northampton women +describing their imps—creatures, by the way, that had figured +largely in the Hopkins trials—said that "if the Imps were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> +not constantly imploy'd to do Mischief, they [the witches] +had not their healths; but when they were imploy'd they +were very Heathful and Well." This was almost exactly +what Anne Leech had confessed at Chelmsford. Her words +were: "And that when This Examinant did not send and +employ them abroad to do mischief, she had not her health, +but when they were imploy'd, she was healthfull and well."</p> + +<p>We cannot point out the same similarity between the Huntingdonshire +witchcrafts of 1716 and the Chelmsford cases. The +narrative of the Huntingdon case is, however, somewhat remarkable. +Mr. Hicks was taking his nine-year-old daughter +to Ipswich one day, when she, seeing a sail at sea, took a +"basin of water," stirred it up, and thereby provoked a storm +that was like to have sunk the ship, had not the father made +the child cease. On the way home, the two passed a "very +fine Field of Corn." "Quoth the child again, 'Father, I can +consume all this Corn in the twinkling of an Eye.' The Father +supposing it not in her Power to do so, he bid to shew her infernal +skill." The child did so, and presently "all the Corn in +the Field became Stubble." He questioned her and found that +she had learned witchcraft from her mother. The upshot of +it was that at Mr. Hicks's instance his wife and child were +prosecuted and hanged. The story has been called remarkable. +Yet it is not altogether unique. In 1645 at Bury St. Edmunds +just after the Chelmsford trial there were eighteen witches +condemned, and one of them, it will be remembered, was Parson +Lowes of Brandeston in Suffolk, who confessed that "he +bewitched a ship near Harwidge; so that with the extreme +tempestuous Seas raised by blusterous windes the said ship +was cast away, wherein were many passengers, who were by +this meanes swallowed up by the merciless waves." It will be +observed that the two stories are not altogether similar. The +Huntingdon narrative is a better tale, and it would be hardly +safe to assert that it drew its inspiration from the earlier +story. Yet, when it is remembered how unusual is the story +in English witch-lore, the supposition gains in probability. +There is a further resemblance in the accounts. The Hicks +child had bewitched a field of corn. One of the Bury witches, +in the narrative which tells of parson Lowes, "confessed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> +She usually bewitcht standing corne, whereby there came great +loss to the owners thereof." The resemblance is hardly close +enough to merit notice in itself. When taken, however, in connection +with the other resemblances it gives cumulative force +to the supposition that the writer of the Huntingdon pamphlet +had gone to the narratives of the Hopkins cases for his +sources.</p> + +<p>There are, however, other reasons for doubting the Huntingdon +story. A writer in <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 2d series, V, +503-504, long ago questioned the narrative because of the +mention of a "Judge Wilmot," and showed that there was no +such judge on the bench before 1755. An examination of +the original pamphlet makes it clear, however, that in this +form the objection is worth nothing. The tract speaks only +of a "<i>Justice</i> Wilmot," who, from the wording of the narrative, +would seem to have conducted the examination preliminary +to the assizes as a justice of the peace would. A justice +of the peace would doubtless, however, have belonged to +some Huntingdonshire county family. Now, the writer has +searched the various records and histories of Huntingdonshire—unfortunately +they are but too few—and among the several +hundred Huntingdonshire names he has found no Wilmots +(and, for that matter, no Hickes either). This would seem to +make the story more improbable.</p> + +<p>In an earlier number of <i>Notes and Queries</i> (1st series, V, +514), James Crossley, whose authority as to matters relating +to witchcraft is of the highest, gives cogent reasons why +the Huntingdonshire narrative could not be true. He recalls +the fact that Hutchinson, who made a chronological table of +cases, published his work in 1718. Now Hutchinson had the +help of two chief-justices, Parker and King, and of Chief-Baron +Bury in collecting his cases; and yet he says that the +last execution for the crime in England was in 1682. Crossley +makes the further strong point that the case of Jane Wenham +in 1712 attracted wide attention and was the occasion of numerous +pamphlets. "It is scarcely possible," he continues, "that +in four years after two persons, one only nine years old, ... +should have been tried and executed for witchcraft without +public attention being called to the circumstance." He adds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> +that neither the <i>Historical Register</i> for 1716 nor the files of +two London newspapers for that year, though they enumerate +other convictions on the circuit, record the supposed cases.</p> + +<p>It will be seen that exactly the same arguments apply to the +Northampton trials of 1705. Hutchinson had been at extraordinary +pains to find out not only about Jane Wenham, +but about the Moordike case of 1702. It is inconceivable that +he should have quite overlooked the execution of two women +at Northampton.</p> + +<p>We have observed that the Northampton, Huntingdon, and +Worcester pamphlets have curious resemblances in wording to +one another (resemblances that point to a common authorship), +that the Worcester narrative can be proved to be fictitious, +and that the Huntingdon narrative almost certainly belongs +in the same category. We have shown, further, that the +Northampton and Huntingdon stories present features of witchcraft +characteristic of the Chelmsford and Bury cases of 1645, +from the first of which the material of the Worcester pamphlet +is drawn; and this fact points not only to the common authorship +of the three tracts, but to the imaginary character of the +Huntingdon and Northampton cases.</p> + +<p>Against these facts there is to be presented what at first +blush seems a very important piece of evidence. In the <i>Northamptonshire +Historical Collections</i>, 1st series (Northampton, +1896), there is a chapter on witchcraft in Northamptonshire, +copied from the <i>Northamptonshire Handbook</i> for 1867. That +chapter goes into the trials of 1705 in detail, making copious +extracts from the pamphlets. In a footnote the writers say: +"To show that the burning actually took place in 1705, it may +be important to mention that there is an item of expense entered +in the overseers' accounts for St. Giles parish for faggots +bought for the purpose." This in itself seems convincing. +It seems to dispose of the whole question at once. There is, +however, one fact that instantly casts a doubt upon this +seemingly conclusive evidence. In England, witches were +hanged, not burned. There are not a half-dozen recorded +exceptions to this rule. Mother Lakeland in 1645 was burned. +That is easy to explain. Mother Lakeland had by witchcraft +killed her husband. Burning was the method of execution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> +prescribed by English law for a woman who killed her husband. +The other cases where burnings are said to have taken +place were almost certainly cases that came under this rule. +But it does not seem possible that the Northampton cases +came under the rule. The two women seem to have had no +husbands. "Ralph Davis," the ostensible writer of the account, +who professed to have known them from their early years, +and who was apparently glad to defame them in every possible +way, accused them of loose living, but not of adultery, as he +would certainly have done, had he conceived of them as married. +It is hard to avoid the conclusion that they could not +have been burned.</p> + +<p>There is a more decisive answer to this argument for the +authenticity of the pamphlet. The supposed confirmation of it +in the St. Giles parish register is probably a blunder. The Reverend +R. M. Serjeantson of St. Peter's Rectory has been +kind enough to examine for the writer the parish register of +St. Giles Church. He writes: "The St. Giles accounts briefly +state that <i>wood</i> was bought from time to time—probably for +melting the lead. There is <i>no</i> mention of <i>faggots</i> nor witches +in the Church wardens' overseers-for-the-poor accounts. I +carefully turned out the whole contents of the parish chest." +Mr. Serjeantson adds at the close this extract: "1705 P'd +for wood 5/ For taking up the old lead 5/." It goes without +saying that Mr. Serjeantson's examination does not prove that +there never was a mention of the faggots bought for burning +witches; but, when all the other evidence is taken into consideration, +this negative evidence does establish a very strong +presumption to that effect. Certainly the supposed passage +from the overseers' accounts can no longer be used to confirm +the testimony of the pamphlet. It looks very much as if +the compilers of the <i>Northamptonshire Handbook</i> for 1867 +had been careless in their handling of records.</p> + +<p>It seems probable, then, that the pamphlet of 1705 dealing +with the execution of Mary Phillips and Elinor Shaw is a +purely fictitious narrative. The matter derives its importance +from the fact that, if the two executions in 1705 be disproved, +the last known execution in England is put back to 1682, ten +years before the Salem affair in Massachusetts. This would of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> +course have some bearing on a recent contention (G. L. +Kittredge, "Notes on Witchcraft," Am. Antiq. Soc., <i>Proc.</i>, +XVIII), that "convictions and executions for witchcraft occurred +in England after they had come to an end in Massachusetts."</p> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="APPENDIX_B" id="APPENDIX_B"></a>B.—LIST OF PERSONS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR +WITCHCRAFT DURING THE REIGN +OF JAMES I.</h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">1.—<span class="smcap">Charged with Causing Death.</span></h3> +<p> +1603. Yorkshire.<br /> +<span class="i3">Mary Pannel.</span><br /> +1606. Hertford.<br /> +<span class="i3">Johanna Harrison and her daughter.</span><br /> +1612. Northampton.<br /> +<span class="i3">Helen Jenkinson, Arthur Bill, Mary Barber.</span><br /> +1612. Lancaster.<br /> +<span class="i3">Chattox, Eliz. Device, James Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Anne Redfearne.</span><br /> +1612. York.<br /> +<span class="i3">Jennet Preston.</span><br /> +1613. Bedford.<br /> +<span class="i3">Mother Sutton and Mary Sutton.</span><br /> +1616. Middlesex.<br /> +<span class="i3">Elizabeth Rutter.</span><br /> +1616. Middlesex.<br /> +<span class="i3">Joan Hunt.</span><br /> +1619. Lincoln.<br /> +<span class="i3">Margaret and Philippa Flower.</span><br /> +1621. Edmonton.<br /> +<span class="i3">Elizabeth Sawyer.</span> +</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2">2.—<span class="smcap">Not Charged with Causing Death</span> (so far as shown by +records).</h3> + +<p> +1607. Rye, Kent.<br /> +<span class="i3">Two women entertained spirits, "to gain wealth."</span><br /> +1612. Lancaster.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i3">John and Jane Bulcock, making to waste away. It +was testified against them that at Malking Tower they +consented to murder, but this was apparently not in the +indictment. Acquitted, but later convicted.</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Alizon Device, caused to waste away.</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Isabel Robey, caused illness.</span><br /> +1616. Enfield, Middlesex.<br /> +<span class="i3">Agnes Berrye, laming and causing to languish.</span><br /> +1616. King's Lynn.<br /> +<span class="i3">Mary Smith, hanged for causing four people to languish.</span><br /> +1616. Leicester.<br /> +<span class="i3">Nine women hanged for bewitching a boy. Six more +condemned on same charge, but pardoned by command +of king.</span> +</p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h3 class="chapter2"><span class="smcap">Mixed Cases.</span></h3> + +<p>1607. Bakewell.<br /> +<span class="i3">Our evidence as to the Bakewell witches is too incomplete +to assure us that they were not accused of killing +by witchcraft.</span><br /> +1612. Northampton.<br /> +<span class="i3">Agnes Brown and Joane Vaughan were indicted for +bewitching Master Avery and Mistress Belcher, "together +with the body of a young child to the death."</span></p> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<h2 class="chapter"><a name="APPENDIX_C" id="APPENDIX_C">C.—LIST OF CASES OF WITCHCRAFT, 1558-1718, WITH +REFERENCES TO SOURCES AND LITERATURE.</a><a name="FNanchor_384-1_1" id="FNanchor_384-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_384-1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<p>1558. John Thirkle, "taylour, detected of conjuringe," to be +examined. <i>Acts of Privy Council</i>, n. s., VII, 6. +---- Several persons in London charged with conjuration to +be sent to the Bishop of London for examination. +<i>Ibid.</i>, 22.</p> +<p>1559. Westminster. Certain persons examined on suspicion, +including probably Lady Frances Throgmorton. <i>Cal. +St. P., Dom., 1547-1580</i>, 142. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span></p> + +<p>c. 1559. Lady Chandos's daughter accused and imprisoned +with George Throgmorton. Brit Mus., Add. MSS., +32,091, fol. 176.</p> + +<p>1560. Kent. Mother Buske of St. John's suspected by the +church authorities. Visitations of Canterbury in +<i>Archæologia Cantiana</i>, XXVI, 31.</p> + +<p>1561. Coxe, alias Devon, a Romish priest, examined for magic +and conjuration, and for celebrating mass. Cal. St. +<i>P., Dom., 1547-1580</i>, 173.</p> + +<p>---- London. Ten men brought before the queen and council +on charge of "trespass, contempt, conjuration and +sorceries." Punished with the pillory and required +to renounce such practices for the future. From an +extract quoted in Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 3,943, +fol. 19.</p> + +<p>1565. Dorset. Agnes Mondaye to be apprehended for bewitching +Mistress Chettell. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., VII, +200-201.</p> + +<p>1565-1573. Durham. Jennet Pereson accused to the church +authorities. <i>Depositions ... from ... Durham</i> (Surtees +Soc.), 99.</p> + +<p>1566. Chelmsford, Essex. Mother Waterhouse hanged; Alice +Chandler hanged, probably at this time; Elizabeth +Francis probably acquitted. <i>The examination and +confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde.</i> For +the cases of Elizabeth Francis and Alice Chandler +see also <i>A detection of damnable driftes,</i> A iv, A +v, verso.</p> + +<p>---- Essex. "Boram's wief" probably examined by the +archdeacon. W. H. Hale, <i>A Series of Precedents +and Proceedings in Criminal Causes, 1475-1640, +extracted from the Act Books of Ecclesiastical +Courts in the Diocese of London</i> (London, 1847), +147.</p> + +<p>1569. Lyme, Dorset. Ellen Walker accused. Roberts, <i>Southern +Counties</i>, 523.</p> + +<p>1570. Essex. Malter's wife of Theydon Mount and Anne +Vicars of Navestock examined by Sir Thomas Smith. +John Strype, <i>Life of Sir Thomas Smith</i> (ed. of Oxford, +1820), 97-100.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p> + +<p>1570-1571. Canterbury. Several witches imprisoned. Mother +Dungeon presented by the grand jury. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports</i>, IX, pt. 1, 156 b; Wm. Welfitt, +"Civis," <i>Minutes collected from the Ancient Records +of Canterbury</i> (Canterbury, 1801-1802), no. +VI.</p> + +<p>---- —— Folkestone, Kent. Margaret Browne, accused of +"unlawful practices," banished from town for seven +years, and to be whipped at the cart's tail if found +within six or seven miles of town. S. J. Mackie, +<i>Descriptive and Historical Account of Folkestone</i> +(Folkestone, 1883), 319.</p> + +<p>1574. Westwell, Kent. "Old Alice" [Norrington?] arraigned +and convicted. Reginald Scot, <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, +130-131.</p> + +<p>---- Middlesex. Joan Ellyse of Westminster convicted on +several indictments for witchcraft and sentenced to +be hanged. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, 84.</p> + +<p>c. 1574. Jane Thorneton accused by Rachel Pinder, who +however confessed to fraud. <i>Discloysing of a late +counterfeyted possession.</i></p> + +<p>1575. Burntwood, Staffordshire. Mother Arnold hanged at +Barking. From the title of a pamphlet mentioned +by Lowndes: <i>The Examination and Confession of a +notorious Witch named Mother Arnold, alias Whitecote, +alias Glastonbury, at the Assise of Burntwood +in July, 1574; who was hanged for Witchcraft at +Barking, 1575.</i> Mrs. Linton, Witch Stories, 153, +says that many were hanged at this time, but I cannot +find authority for the statement.</p> + +<p>---- Middlesex. Elizabeth Ducke of Harmondsworth +acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, 94.</p> + +<p>---- Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Katharine Smythe acquitted. +Henry Harrod, "Notes on the Records of the Corporation +of Great Yarmouth," in <i>Norfolk Archæology</i>, +IV, 248.</p> + +<p>1577. Seaford, Sussex. Joan Wood presented by the grand +jury. M. A. Lower, "Memorials of Seaford," in +Sussex Archæological Soc., <i>Collections</i>, VII, 98.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span></p> + +<p>---- Middlesex. Helen Beriman of Laleham acquitted. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, 103.</p> + +<p>---- Essex. Henry Chittam of Much Barfield to be tried +for coining false money and conjuring. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, +n. s., IX, 391; X, 8, 62.</p> + +<p>1578. Prescall, Sanford, and "one Emerson, a preiste," suspected +of conjuration against the queen. The first +two committed. <i>Id.</i>, X, 382; see also 344, 373.</p> + +<p>---- Evidence of the use of sorcery against the queen discovered. +<i>Cal. St. P., Spanish, 1568-1579</i>, 611; see +also note to Ben Jonson's <i>Masque of Queenes</i> (London, +Shakespeare Soc., 1848), 71.</p> + +<p>---- Sussex. "One Tree, bailiff of Lewes, and one Smith +of Chinting" to be examined. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., X, +220.</p> + +<p>1579. Chelmsford, Essex. Three women executed. Mother +Staunton released because "no manslaughter objected +against her." <i>A Detection of damnable driftes.</i></p> + +<p>---- Abingdon, Berks. Four women hanged; at least two +others and probably more were apprehended. <i>A +Rehearsall both straung and true of ... acts committed +by Elisabeth Stile ...</i>; <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., +XI, 22; Scot, <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, 10, 51, 543.</p> + +<p>---- Certain persons suspected of sorcery to be examined +by the Bishop of London. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., XI, 36.</p> + +<p>---- Salop, Worcester, and Montgomery. Samuel Cocwra +paid for "searching for certen persons suspected +for conjuracion." <i>Ibid.</i>, 292.</p> + +<p>---- Southwark. Simon Pembroke, a conjurer, brought to the +parish church of St. Saviour's to be tried by the +"ordinarie judge for those parties," but falls dead +before the opening of the trial. Holinshed, <i>Chronicles</i> +(ed. of 1586-1587), III, 1271.</p> + +<p>---- Southampton. Widow Walker tried by the leet jury, +outcome unknown. J. S. Davies, <i>History of Southampton</i> +(Southampton, 1883), 236.</p> + +<p>1579-1580. Shropshire. Mother Garve punished in the corn +market. Owen and Blakeway, <i>History of Shrewsbury</i>, +I, 562.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span></p> + +<p>1580. Stanhope, Durham. Ann Emerson accused by the +church officials. <i>Injunctions ... of ... Bishop of +Durham</i> (Surtees Soc.), 126.</p> + +<p>---- Bucks. John Coleman and his wife examined by four +justices of the peace at the command of the privy +council. They were probably released. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. +s., XI, 427; XII, 29.</p> + +<p>---- Kent. Several persons to be apprehended for conjuration. +<i>Id.</i>, XII, 21-23.</p> + +<p>---- Somerset. Henry Harrison and Thomas Wadham, suspected +of conjuration, to appear before the privy +council. <i>Ibid.</i>, 22-23.</p> + +<p>---- Somerset. Henry Fize of Westpenner, detected in conjuration, +brought before the privy council. <i>Ibid.</i>, 34.</p> + +<p>---- Essex. "Sondery persones" charged with sorceries and +conjuration. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, XII, 29, 34.</p> + +<p>1581. Randoll and four others accused for "conjuring to +know where treasure was hid in the earth." Randoll +and three others found guilty. Randoll alone +executed. Holinshed, <i>Chronicles</i> (London, 1808), +IV, 433.</p> + +<p>1581. Padstow, Cornwall. Anne Piers accused of witchcraft. +Examination of witnesses. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1581-1590</i>, +29. See also <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., XIII, 228.</p> + +<p>1581. Rochester, Kent. Margaret Simmons acquitted. Scot, +<i>Discoverie</i>, 5.</p> + +<p>1581-82. Colchester, Essex. Annis Herd accused before the +"spiritual Courte." <i>Witches taken at St. Oses</i>, 1582.</p> + +<p>1582. St. Osyth, Essex. Sixteen accused, one of whom was a +man. How many were executed uncertain. It seems +to have been a tradition that thirteen were executed. +Scot wrote that seventeen or eighteen were executed. +<i>Witches taken at St. Oses</i>, 1582; Scot, <i>Discoverie</i>, +543.</p> + +<p>1582 (or before). "T. E., Maister of Art and practiser both of +physicke, and also in times past, of certeine vaine +sciences," condemned for conjuration, but reprieved. +Scot, <i>Discoverie</i>, 466-469.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span></p> + +<p>1582. Middlesex. Margery Androwes of Clerkenwell held in +bail. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, 133.</p> + +<p>1582. Durham. Alison Lawe of Hart compelled to do penance. +<i>Denham Tracts</i> (Folk-Lore Soc.), II, 332.</p> + +<p>1582. Kent. Goodwife Swane of St. John's suspected by the +church authorities. <i>Archæol. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 19.</p> + +<p>1582-83. Nottingham. A certain Batte examined before the +"Meare" of Nottingham. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, +XII, pt. 4, 147.</p> + +<p>1582-83. King's Lynn. Mother Gabley probably hanged. Excerpt +from parish register of Wells in Norfolk, in +the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, LXII (1792), 904.</p> + +<p>1583. Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire. Three women tried, +one sentenced to a year's imprisonment and the pillory. +J. J. Sheahan, <i>History of Kingston-upon-Hull</i> +(London, 1864), 86.</p> + +<p>1583. Colchester, Essex. Two women sentenced to a year +in prison and to four appearances in the pillory. E. +L. Cutts, Colchester (London, 1888), 151. Henry +Harrod, <i>Report on the Records of Colchester</i> (Colchester, +1865), 17; App., 14.</p> + +<p>1583. St. Peter's, Kent. Ellen Bamfield suspected by the +church authorities. <i>Archæol. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 45.</p> + +<p>1584. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Elizabeth Butcher (punished +before) and Joan Lingwood condemned to be +hanged. C. J. Palmer, <i>History of Great Yarmouth</i>, +I, 273.</p> + +<p>1584. Staffordshire. An indictment preferred against Jeffrey +Leach. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1581-1590</i>, 206.</p> + +<p>1584. "The oulde witche of Ramsbury" and several other +"oulde witches and sorcerers" suspected. <i>Cal. St. +P., Dom., 1581-1590</i>, 220.</p> + +<p>1584. York. Woman, indicted for witchcraft and "high +treason touching the supremacy," condemned. <i>Cal. +St. P., Dom., Add. 1580-1625</i>, 120-121.</p> + +<p>1584. Middlesex. Elizabeth Bartell of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields +acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, +145.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span></p> + +<p>1585. Middlesex. Margaret Hackett of Stanmore executed. +From titles of two pamphlets mentioned by Lowndes, +<i>The severall Facts of Witchcrafte approved on Margaret +Haskett ...</i> 1585, and <i>An Account of Margaret +Hacket, a notorious Witch ...</i> 1585.</p> + +<p>1585. Middlesex. Joan Barringer of "Harroweelde" (Harrow +Weald) acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, +I, 157.</p> + +<p>1585. Dorset. John Meere examined. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., +1581-90</i>, 246-247.</p> + +<p>1585-86. Alnwick, Northumberland. Two men and two women +committed to prison on suspicion of killing a sheriff. +<i>Denham Tracts</i>, II, 332; <i>Cal. S. P., Dom., Add. 1580-1625</i>, +168.</p> + +<p>1586. Eckington, Derbyshire. Margaret Roper accused. Discharged. +Harsnett, <i>Discovery of the Fraudulent +Practises of John Darrel</i>, 310.</p> + +<p>1586. Faversham, Kent. Jone Cason [Carson] tried before +the mayor, executed. Holinshed, <i>Chronicles</i> (1586-1587), +III, 1560.</p> + +<p>1587. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Helena Gill indicted. C. J. +Palmer, <i>History of Great Yarmouth</i>, 273. H. Harrod +in <i>Norfolk Archæology</i>, IV, 248, assigns this to +1597, but it is probably a mistake.</p> + +<p>c. 1588. A woman at R. H. said to have been imprisoned and +to have died before the assizes. Gifford, <i>Dialogue</i> +(London, 1603), C.</p> + +<p>1589. Chelmsford, Essex. Three women hanged. <i>The apprehension +and confession of three notorious +Witches.</i></p> + +<p>1589. Several persons to be examined about their dealings in +conjuration with an Italian friar. <i>Acts P. C.</i>, n. s., +XVII, 31-32.</p> + +<p>1589. Mrs. Deir brought into question for sorcery against +the queen. Charge dismissed. Strype, <i>Annals of +the Reformation</i> (London, 1709-1731), IV, 7-8.</p> + +<p>1590. Mrs. Dewse suspected of attempting to make use of conjurors. +<i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1581-1590, 644.</p> + +<p>1590. John Bourne, a "sorcerer and seducer," arrested. <i>Acts +P. C.</i>, n. s., XVIII, 373.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p> + +<p>1590. Berwick. A Scottish witch imprisoned. John Scott, +<i>History of Berwick</i> (London, 1888), 180; <i>Archæologia</i>, +XXX, 172.</p> + +<p>1590. Norfolk. Margaret Grame accused before justice of the +peace. Neighbors petition in her behalf. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports, Various</i>, II, 243-244.</p> + +<p>1590. King's Lynn. Margaret Read burnt. Benjamin Mackerell, +<i>History and Antiquities ... of King's Lynn</i>, +(London, 1738), 231.</p> + +<p>1590. Edmonton, Middlesex. Certain men taken for witchcraft +and conjuring. Bloodhound used in pursuit +of them. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1581-1590, 689.</p> + +<p>1590-91. Hertfordshire. Indictment of Joan White for killing. +<i>Hertfordshire County Session Rolls</i>, I, 4.</p> + +<p>1591. John Prestall suspected. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1591-1594, +17-19.</p> + +<p>1591. Middlesex. Stephen Trefulback of Westminster given +penalty of statute, <i>i. e.</i>, probably pillory. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, I, 197.</p> + +<p>1592. Colchester, Essex. Margaret Rand indicted by grand +jury. Brit. Mus., Stowe MSS., 840, fol. 42.</p> + +<p>1592. Yorkshire. "Sara B. de C." examined. West, <i>Symboleography</i>, +pt. II (London, 1594), ed. of 1611, fol. +134 verso (reprinted in <i>County Folk-Lore</i>, Folk-Lore +Soc., 135). Whether the "S. B. de C. in comit. +H." whose indictment in the same year is printed +also by West may possibly be the same woman can +not be determined.</p> + +<p>1592. Yorkshire. Margaret L. de A. examined. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p>1593. Warboys, Huntingdonshire. Mother, daughter and +father Samuel executed. <i>The most strange and +admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys.</i> +1593. See also John Darrel, <i>A Detection of +that sinnful ... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 20-21, +39-40, 110. Harsnett, <i>Discovery of the Fraudulent +Practises of John Darrel</i>, 93, 97.</p> + +<p>1594. Jane Shelley examined for using sorcerers to find the +time of the queen's death. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm., +Cecil.</i>, pt. V, 25.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span></p> + +<p>1595. St. Peter's Kent. Two women presented by the church +authorities. Still suspected in 1599. <i>Archæol. Cant.</i>, +XXVI, 46.</p> + +<p>1595. Woodbridge, Suffolk. Witches put in the pillory. +<i>County Folk-Lore, Suffolk</i> (Folk-Lore Soc., London, +1895), 193.</p> + +<p>1595. Jane Mortimer pardoned for witchcraft. Bodleian, +Tanner MSS., CLXVIII, fol. 29.</p> + +<p>1595. Near Bristol, Somerset. Severall committed for the +Earl of Derby's death. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, +IV, app., 366 b. See also E. Baines's <i>Lancaster</i> +(London, 1870), 273-274 and note.</p> + +<p>1595. Barnet and Braynford, Herts. Three witches executed. +From title of pamphlet mentioned by Lowndes, +<i>The Arraignment and Execution of 3 detestable +Witches, John Newell, Joane his wife, and Hellen +Calles: two executed at Barnett and one at Braynford</i>, +1 Dec. 1595.</p> + +<p>1596 (or before). Derbyshire. Elizabeth Wright (mother +of Alice Gooderidge) several times summoned before +the justice of the peace on suspicion. <i>The +most wonderfull and true Storie of ... Alse Gooderidge</i> +(1597).</p> + +<p>1596. Burton-upon-Trent, Derbyshire. Alice Gooderidge tried +at Derby, convicted. Died in prison. Harsnett, <i>Discovery +of the fraudulent Practises of John Darrel; +John Darrel, Detection of that sinnful ... discours +of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 38, 40; <i>The most wonderfull +and true Storie of ... Alse Gooderidge</i> (1597).</p> + +<p>1596-1597. Leicester. Mother Cooke hanged. Mary Bateson, +<i>Records of the Borough of Leicester</i> (Cambridge, +1899), III, 335.</p> + +<p>1596-1597. Lancaster. Hartley condemned and executed. +John Darrel, <i>True Narration</i> (in the <i>Somers Tracts</i>, +III), 175, 176; George More, <i>A True Discourse +concerning the certaine possession ... of 7 persons +... in Lancashire</i>, 18-22; John Darrel, <i>Detection +of that sinnful ... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 40.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span></p> + +<p>1597. Nottingham. Thirteen or more accused by Somers, at +least eight of whom were put in gaol. All but two +discharged. Alice Freeman tried at the assizes and +finally acquitted. John Darrel, <i>Detection of that +sinnful ... discours of Samuel Harshnet</i>, 109-111; +<i>An Apologie or defence of the possession of William +Sommers</i>, L-L 3; Samuel Harsnett, <i>Discovery +of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel</i>, 5, 102, +140-141, 320-322.</p> + +<p>1597. St. Lawrence, Kent. Sibilla Ferris suspected by the +church authorities. <i>Archæol. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 12.</p> + +<p>1597. Nottingham. William Somers accused of witchcraft as +a ruse to get him into the house of correction. +Darrel, <i>A True Narration of the ... Vexation ... +of seven persons in Lancashire</i>, in <i>Somers Tracts</i>, +III, 184; also his <i>Brief Apologie</i> (1599), 17.</p> + +<p>1597. Yorkshire. Elizabeth Melton of Collingham condemned, +pardoned. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1595-1597, +400.</p> + +<p>1597. Lancashire. Alice Brerely of Castleton condemned, +pardoned. <i>Ibid.</i>, 406.</p> + +<p>1597. Middlesex. Agnes Godfrey of Enfield held by the justice +of the peace on £10 bail. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, I, 237.</p> + +<p>1597. St. Andrew's in Holborne, Middlesex. Josia Ryley +arraigned. "Po se mortuus in facie curie," <i>i. e.</i> +<i>Posuit se moriturum.</i> <i>Ibid.</i>, 225.</p> + +<p>1597. Middlesex. Helen Spokes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields +acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i>, 239.</p> + +<p>1598. Berwick. Richard Swynbourne's wife accused. John +Scott, <i>History of Berwick</i> (London, 1888), 180.</p> + +<p>1598. St. Peter's, Kent. Two women suspected by the church +officials; one of them presented again the next year. +<i>Archæol. Cant.</i>, XXVI, 46.</p> + +<p>1598. King's Lynn. Elizabeth Housegoe executed. Mackerell, +<i>History and Antiquities of King's Lynn</i>, 232.</p> + +<p>1599. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Jone Jordan of Shadbrook +tried. Darrel, <i>A Survey of Certaine Dialogical +Discourses</i>, 54.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p> + +<p>1599. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Joane Nayler tried. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p>1599. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Oliffe Bartham of Shadbrook +executed. <i>The Triall of Maist. Dorrel</i>, 92-98.</p> + +<p>1599. London. Anne Kerke of Bokes-wharfe executed at +"Tiburn." <i>The Triall of Maist. Dorrel</i>, 99-103.</p> + +<p>1600. Hertford. A "notable witch" committed to the gaol +at Hertford. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Cecil +MSS.</i>, pt. X, 310.</p> + +<p>1600. Rosa Bexwell pardoned. Bodleian, Tanner MSS., +CLXVIII, fol. 104.</p> + +<p>1600. Norfolk. Margaret Fraunces committed for a long +time. Probably released by justice of the peace on +new evidence. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, X, pt. +II (Gawdy MSS.), 71. See also below, pp. 400, 401.</p> + +<p>1600. Ipswich, Suffolk. Several conjurers suspected. <i>Cal. +St. P., Dom.</i>, 1598-1601, 523.</p> + +<p>1601. Bishop Burton, York. Two women apprehended for +bewitching a boy. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 32,496, +fol. 42 b.</p> + +<p>1601. Middlesex. Richard Nelson of St. Katharine's arraigned. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, I, 260.</p> + +<p>1601. Nottingham. Ellen Bark presented at the sessions. +<i>Records of the Borough of Nottingham</i>, IV, 260-261.</p> + +<p>1602. Middlesex. Elizabeth Roberts of West Drayton indicted +on three charges, acquitted. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, I, 212.</p> + +<p>1602. Saffron Walden, Essex. Alice Bentley tried before the +quarter sessions. Case probably dismissed. Darrel, +<i>A Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses</i>, 54.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Northfleet, Kent. Pardon to Alice S. for bewitching +a cow and pigs. Bodleian, Rawlinson +MSS., C 404, fol. 205 b.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Woman condemned to prison and pillory. Gifford, +<i>Dialogue concerning Witches</i> (1603), L 4 verso.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Cambridge. Two women perhaps hanged at this +time. Henry More, <i>Antidote to Atheisme</i>, III. But +see 1605, Cambridge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span></p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Mother W. of W. H. said to have been executed. +Gifford, <i>Dialogue concerning Witches</i>, D 4 verso—E.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Mother W. of Great T. said to have been hanged. +<i>Ibid.</i>, C 4.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Woman said to have been hanged. <i>Ibid.</i>, L 3-L 3 +verso.</p> + +<p>temp. Eliz. Two women said to have been hanged. <i>Ibid.</i>, +I 3 verso.</p> + +<p>1602-1603. London. Elizabeth Jackson sentenced, for bewitching +Mary Glover, to four appearances in the pillory +and a year in prison. John Swan, <i>A True and Breife +Report of Mary Glover's Vexation</i>; E. Jorden, <i>A +briefe discourse of ... the Suffocation of the +Mother</i>, 1603; also a MS., <i>Marie Glover's late woefull +case ... upon occasion of Doctor Jordens discourse +of the Mother, wherein hee covertly taxeth, +first the Phisitiones which judged her sicknes a vexation +of Sathan and consequently the sentence of +Lawe and proceeding against the Witche who was +discovered to be a meanes thereof, with A defence +of the truthe against D. J. his scandalous Impugnations</i>, +by Stephen Bradwell, 1603. Brit. Mus., Sloane +MSS., 831. An account by Lewis Hughes, appended +to his <i>Certaine Grievances</i> (1641-2), is quoted +by Sinclar, <i>Satan's Invisible World Discovered</i> +(Edinburgh, 1685), 95-100; and hence Burton (<i>The +Kingdom of Darkness</i>) and Hutchinson (<i>Historical +Essay concerning Witchcraft</i>) assign a wrong date.</p> + +<p>1603. Yorkshire. Mary Pannel executed for killing in 1593. +Mayhall, <i>Annals of Yorkshire</i> (London, 1878), I, +58. See also E. Fairfax, <i>A Discourse of Witchcraft</i>, +179-180.</p> + +<p>1603. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Ales Moore in gaol on suspicion. +C. J. Palmer, <i>History of Great Yarmouth</i>, +II, 70.</p> + +<p>1604. Wooler, Northumberland. Katherine Thompson and +Anne Nevelson proceeded against by the Vicar General +of the Bishop of Durham. Richardson, <i>Table +Book</i>, I, 245; J. Raine, <i>York Depositions</i>, 127, note.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span></p> + +<p>1605. Cambridge. A witch alarm. Letters of Sir Thomas +Lake to Viscount Cranbourne, January 18, 1604/5, +and of Sir Edward Coke to Viscount Craybourne, +Jan. 29, 1604/5, both in Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 6177, +fol. 403. This probably is the affair referred to in +<i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1603-1610, 218. Nor is it impossible +that Henry More had this affair in mind when +he told of two women who were executed in Cambridge +in the time of Elizabeth (see above, temp. +Eliz., Cambridge) and was two or three years astray +in his reckoning.</p> + +<p>1605. Doncaster, York. Jone Jurdie of Rossington examined. +Depositions in <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1857, pt. I, +593-595.</p> + +<p>1606. Louth, Lincolnshire. "An Indictment against a Witche." +R. W. Goulding, <i>Louth Old Corporation Records</i> +(Louth, 1891), 54.</p> + +<p>1606. Hertford. Johanna Harrison and her daughter said to +have been executed. This rests upon the pamphlet +<i>The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther</i>, ... See appendix +A, § 3.</p> + +<p>1606. Richmond, Yorkshire. Ralph Milner ordered by quarter +sessions to make his submission at Mewkarr +Church. <i>North Riding Record Society</i>, I, 58.</p> + +<p>1607. Middlesex. Alice Bradley of Hampstead arraigned on +four bills, acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, +II, 8.</p> + +<p>1607. Middlesex. Rose Mersam of Whitecrosse Street acquitted. +<i>Ibid.</i>, II, 20.</p> + +<p>1607. Bakewell, Derby. Several women said to have been executed +here. See Robert Simpson, <i>A Collection of +Fragments illustrative of the History and Antiquities +of Derby</i> (Derby, 1826), 90; Glover, <i>History of +Derby</i> (ed. Thos. Noble, 1833), pt. I, vol. II, p. 613; +J. C. Cox, <i>Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals</i>, +II, 88. For what purports to be a detailed account +of the affair see W. Andrews, <i>Bygone Derbyshire</i>, +180-184.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span></p> + +<p>1607-11. Rye, Sussex. Two women condemned by local +authorities probably discharged upon interference +from London. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIII, +pt. 4, 136-137, 139-140, 147-148.</p> + +<p>1608. Simon Read pardoned. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom.</i>, 1603-1610, +406.</p> + +<p>1610. Norfolk. Christian[a] Weech, pardoned in 1604, now +again pardoned. <i>Ibid.</i>, 96, 598. Was this the Christiana +Weekes of Cleves Pepper, Wilts, who in 1651 +and 1654 was again and again accused of telling +where lost goods were? See <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. +Reports, Various</i>, I, 120.</p> + +<p>1610. Middlesex. Agnes Godfrey of Enfield, with four bills +against her, acquitted on three, found guilty of killing. +File containing sentence lost. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, II, 57-58. Acquitted again in 1621. <i>Ibid.</i>, +79, 80.</p> + +<p>1610. Leicestershire. Depositions taken by the sheriff concerning +Randall and other witches. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports</i>, XII, pt. 4 (<i>MSS. of the Duke of +Rutland</i>), I, 422.</p> + +<p>1611. Carnarvon. Story of witchcraft "committed on six +young maids." Privy Council orders the Bishop of +Bangor and the assize judges to look into it. <i>Cal. +St. P., Dom., 1611-1618</i>, 53.</p> + +<p>1611. Wm. Bate, indicted twenty years before for practising +invocation, etc., for finding treasure, pardoned. <i>Ibid.</i>, +29.</p> + +<p>1611. Thirsk, Yorkshire. Elizabeth Cooke presented by quarter +sessions for slight crime related to witchcraft. +<i>North Riding Record Soc.</i>, I, 213.</p> + +<p>1612. Lancaster. Margaret Pearson, who in 1612 was sentenced +to a year's imprisonment and the pillory, had +been twice tried before, once for killing, and once for +bewitching a neighbor. Potts, <i>Wonderfull Discoverie +of Witches in the countie of Lancaster</i> +(Chetham Soc., 1845).</p> + +<p>1612. Lancaster. Ten persons of Pendle sentenced to death, +one to a year's imprisonment; eight acquitted in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span>cluding +three women of Salmesbury. Potts, <i>Wonderfull +Discoverie of Witches</i>, Chetham Soc., 1845. +But <i>cf.</i> Cooper's words (<i>Mystery of Witchcraft, +1617</i>), 15.</p> + +<p>1612. York. Jennet Preston sentenced to death. Potts, +<i>Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches</i>.</p> + +<p>1612. Northampton. At least four women and one man +hanged. Many others accused, one of whom died in +gaol. <i>The Witches of Northamptonshire</i>, 1612; also +Brit Mus., Sloane MSS., 972, fol. 7.</p> + +<p>1613. Bedford. Mother Sutton and Mary Sutton, her daughter, +of Milton Miles hanged. <i>Witches Apprehended, +Examined and Executed</i>, 1613. See app. A, § 3, +for mention of another pamphlet on the same subject, +<i>A Booke of the Wytches lately condemned and +executed</i>. See also <i>The Wonderful Discoverie of ... +Margaret and Phillip Flower</i>, preface, and Richard +Bernard, <i>Guide to Grand Jurymen</i>, <span class="smcap">iii</span>.</p> + +<p>1613. Wilts. Margaret Pilton of Warminster, accused at +quarter sessions, probably released. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports, Various</i>, I, 86-87.</p> + +<p>1614. Middlesex. Dorothy Magick of St. Andrew's in Holborn +sentenced to a year's imprisonment and four +appearances in the pillory. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, +II, 91, 218.</p> + +<p>1615. Middlesex. Joan Hunt of Hampstead, who had been, +along with her husband, twice tried and acquitted, +and whose accuser had been ordered to ask forgiveness, +sentenced to be hanged. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, II, lii, 95, 110, 217-218.</p> + +<p>1616. Leicester. Nine women hanged on the accusation of a +boy. Six others accused, one of whom died in prison, +five released after the king's examination of the +boy. Robert Heyrick's letters from Leicester, July +16 and October 15, 1616, reprinted in the <i>Annual +Register</i>, 1800, p. 405. See also <i>Cal. S. P., Dom., +1611-1618</i>, 398, and William Kelly, <i>Royal Progresses +in Leicester</i> (Leicester, 1855), pt. II, 15.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></p> + +<p>1616. King's Lynn, Norfolk. Mary Smith hanged. Alexander +Roberts, <i>Treatise of Witchcraft</i> (London, 1616); +Mackerell, <i>History and Antiquities of King's Lynn</i>, +233.</p> + +<p>1616. Middlesex. Elizabeth Rutter of Finchley, for laming +and killing three persons, sentenced to be hanged. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, II, 108, 218.</p> + +<p>1616. Middlesex. Margaret Wellan of London accused "upon +suspition to be a witch." Andrew Camfield held in +£40 bail to appear against her. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, II, 124-125.</p> + +<p>1617. Middlesex. Agnes Berrye of Enfield sentenced to be +hanged. <i>Ibid.</i>, 116, 219.</p> + +<p>1617. Middlesex. Anne Branche of Tottenham arraigned on +four counts, acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i>, 219.</p> + +<p>1618. Middlesex. Bridget Meakins acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i>, 225.</p> + +<p>1619. Lincoln. Margaret and Philippa Flower hanged. Their +mother, Joan Flower, died on the way to prison. +<i>The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of +Margaret and Phillip Flower</i>; J. Nichols, <i>History +and Antiquities of the County of Leicester</i> (1795-1815), +II, pt. I, 49; <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1619-1623</i>, 129; +<i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Rutland MSS.</i>, IV, 514.</p> + +<p>1619. Leicester. Three women, Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, +Ellen Green, accused and confessed. Doubtless executed. +<i>The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts +of Margaret and Phillip Flower</i>.</p> + +<p>1619. Middlesex. Agnes Miller of Finchley acquitted. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, II, 143-144.</p> + +<p>1620. London. "One Peacock, sometime a schoolmaster and +minister," for bewitching the king, committed to the +Tower and tortured. Williams, <i>Court and Times +of James I</i>, II, 202; <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1619-1623</i>, 125.</p> + +<p>1620. Leicester. Gilbert Smith, rector of Swithland, accused of +witchcraft among other things. <i>Leicestershire and +Rutland Notes and Queries</i>, I, 247.</p> + +<p>1620. Padiham, Lancashire. Witches in prison. <i>House and +Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths</i>, pt. II. (Chetham +Soc., 1856), 240.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p> + +<p>1620. Staffordshire. Woman accused on charges of the "boy +of Bilson" acquitted. <i>The Boy of Bilson</i> (London, +1622); Arthur Wilson, <i>Life and Reign of James I</i>, +107-112; Webster, <i>Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft</i>, +274-275.</p> + +<p>1621. Edmonton, Middlesex. Elizabeth Sawyer hanged. <i>The +wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer</i>, by +Henry Goodcole (1621).</p> + +<p>1621. Middlesex. Anne Beaver, accused of murder on six +counts, acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, II, +72-73. Acquitted again in 1625. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, 2.</p> + +<p>1622. York. Six women indicted for bewitching Edward Fairfax's +children. At April assizes two were released +upon bond, two and probably four discharged. At +the August assizes they were again acquitted. Fairfax, +<i>A Discourse of Witchcraft</i> (Philobiblon Soc., +London, 1858-1859).</p> + +<p>1622. Middlesex. Margaret Russel, alias "Countess," committed +to Newgate by Sir Wm. Slingsby on a charge +by Lady Jennings of injuring her daughter. Dr. Napier +diagnosed the daughter's illness as epilepsy. +Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 36,674, fol. 134.</p> + +<p>1623. Yorkshire. Elizabeth Crearey of North Allerton sentenced +to be set in the pillory once a quarter. Thirsk +Quarter Sessions Records in <i>North Riding Record +Society</i> (London, 1885), III, 177, 181.</p> + +<p>1624. Bristol. Two witches said to have been executed. John +Latimer, <i>The Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth +Century</i> (Bristol, 1900), 91. Latimer quotes from +another "annalist."</p> + +<p>temp. Jac. I? Two women said to have been hanged. Story +doubtful. Edward Poeton, <i>Winnowing of White +Witchcraft</i> (Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 1,954), 41-42.</p> + +<p>temp. Jac. I. Norfolk. Joane Harvey accused for scratching +"an olde witche" there, "Mother Francis nowe +deade." Mother Francis had before been imprisoned +at Norwich. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 28,223, fol. 15.</p> + +<p>temp. Jac. I. Warwickshire. Coventry haunted by "hellish sorcerers." +"The pestilent brood" also in Cheshire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> +Thomas Cooper, <i>The Mystery of Witchcraft</i> (1617), +13, 16.</p> + +<p>temp. Jac. I. Norwich. Witches probably accused for illness +of a child. Possibly Mother Francis was one of +them. Cooper, <i>ibid.</i>, "Epistle Dedicatorie."</p> + +<p>1626. Taunton, Somerset. Edmund Bull and Joan Greedie +accused. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 36,674, fol. 189; +Wright, <i>Narratives of Sorcery and Magic</i>, II, 139-143. +See also Richard Bernard, <i>Guide to Grand +Jurymen</i>, "Epistle Dedicatorie."</p> + +<p>1627. Durham. Sara Hathericke and Jane Urwen accused +before the Consistory Court. <i>Folk-Lore Journal</i> +(London, 1887), V, 158. Quoted by Edward Peacock +from the records of the Consistory Court of +Durham.</p> + +<p>1627. Linneston, Lancaster. Elizabeth Londesdale accused. +Certificate of neighbors in her favor. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports</i>, XIV, pt. 4 (<i>Kenyon MSS.</i>), 36.</p> + +<p>1628. Leepish, Northumberland. Jane Robson committed. +Mackenzie, <i>History of Northumberland</i> (Newcastle, +1825), 36. Mackenzie copies from the Mickleton +MS.</p> + +<p>1630. Lancaster. A certain Utley said to have been hanged +for bewitching Richard Assheton. E. Baines, <i>Lancaster</i> +(ed. of 1868-1870), II, 12.</p> + +<p>1630. Sandwich, Kent. Woman hanged. Wm. Boys, <i>Collections +for an History of Sandwich in Kent</i> (Canterbury, +1792), 707.</p> + +<p>c. 1630. Wilts. "John Barlowes wife" said to have been executed. +MS. letter of 1685-86 printed in the <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. I, 405-410.</p> + +<p>1633. Louth, Lincolnshire. Witch alarm; two searchers appointed. +One witch indicted. Goulding, <i>Louth +Old Corporation Records</i>, 54.</p> + +<p>c. 1633. Lancaster. The father and mother of Mary Spencer +condemned. <i>Cal. S. P., Dom., 1634-1635</i>, 79.</p> + +<p>1633. Norfolk. Woman accused. No arrest made. <i>Hist. +MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, X, pt. 2 (<i>Gawdy MSS.</i>), p. +144.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></p> + +<p>1633-34. Lancaster. Several witches, probably seventeen, +tried and condemned. Reprieved by the king. For +the many references to this affair see above, chap. +VII, footnotes.</p> + +<p>1634. Yorkshire. Four women of West Ayton presented for +telling "per veneficationem vel incantationem" +where certain stolen clothes were to be found. +Thirsk Quarter Sessions Records in <i>North Riding +Record Society</i>, IV, 20.</p> + +<p>1635. Lancaster. Four witches condemned. Privy Council +orders Bishop Bridgeman to examine them. Two +died in gaol. The others probably reprieved. <i>Hist. +MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XII, 2 (<i>Cowper MSS.</i>, II), +77, 80.</p> + +<p>1635. Leicester. Agnes Tedsall acquitted. <i>Leicestershire and +Rutland Notes and Queries</i>, I, 247.</p> + +<p>1635. ——. Mary Prowting, who was a plaintiff before the +Star Chamber, accused of witchcraft. Accuser, who +was one of the defendants, exposed. <i>Cal. St. P., +Dom., 1635</i>, 476-477.</p> + +<p>c. 1637. Bedford. Goodwife Rose "ducked," probably by officials. +Wm. Drage, <i>Daimonomageia</i> (London, +1665), 41.</p> + +<p>1637. Staffordshire. Joice Hunniman committed, almost certainly +released. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, II, +App., 48 b.</p> + +<p>1637-38. Lathom, Lancashire. Anne Spencer examined and +probably committed. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, +XIV, 4 (<i>Kenyon MSS.</i>), 55.</p> + +<p>1638. Middlesex. Alice Bastard arraigned on two charges. +Acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 112-113.</p> + +<p>1641. Middlesex. One Hammond of Westminster tried and +perhaps hanged. John Aubrey, <i>Remaines of Gentilisme +and Judaisme</i> (Folk-Lore Soc.), 61.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol I. Oxford. Woman perhaps executed. This +story is given at third hand in <i>A Collection of Modern +Relations</i> (London, 1693), 48-49.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol, I. Somerset. One or more hanged. Later the +bewitched person, who may have been Edmund Bull<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> +(see above, <i>s. v.</i> 1626, Taunton), hanged also as a +witch. Meric Casaubon, <i>Of Credulity and Incredulity</i> +(London, 1668), 170-171.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol. I? Taunton Dean. Woman acquitted. North, +<i>Life of North</i>, 131.</p> + +<p>1642. Middlesex. Nicholas Culpepper of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, +acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, +85.</p> + +<p>1643. Newbury, Berks. A woman supposed to be a witch +probably shot here by the parliament forces. <i>A +Most certain, strange and true Discovery of a Witch</i> +... 1643; <i>Mercurius Aulicus</i>, Oct. 1-8, 1643; <i>Mercurius +Civicus</i>, Sept. 21-28, 1643; <i>Certaine Informations</i>, +Sept. 25-Oct. 2, 1643; <i>Mercurius Britannicus</i>, +Oct. 10-17, 1643.</p> + +<p>1644. Sandwich, Kent. "The widow Drew hanged for a +witch." W. Boys, <i>Collections for an History of +Sandwich</i>, 714.</p> + +<p>1645 (July). Chelmsford, Essex. Sixteen certainly condemned, +probably two more. Possibly eleven or twelve more +at another assize. <i>A true and exact Relation ... +of ... the late Witches ... at Chelmesford</i> (1645); +Arthur Wilson, in Peck, <i>Desiderata Curiosa</i>, II, +76; Hopkins, <i>Discovery of Witches</i>, 2-3; Stearne, +<i>Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft</i>, 14, 16, +36, 38, 58, etc.; <i>Signes and Wonders from Heaven</i> +(1645), 2; "R. B." <i>The Kingdom of Darkness</i> +(London, 1688). The fate of the several Essex +witches is recorded by the <i>True and Exact Relation</i> +in marginal notes printed opposite their depositions +(but omitted in the reprint of that pamphlet in Howell's +<i>State Trials</i>). "R. B.," in <i>The Kingdom of +Darkness</i>, though his knowledge of the Essex cases +is ascribed to the pamphlet, gives details as to the +time and place of the executions which are often in +strange conflict with its testimony.</p> + +<p>1645 (July). Norfolk. Twenty witches said to have been +executed. Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, I, 487. <i>A Perfect +Diurnal</i> (July 21-28, 1645) says that there has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> +a "tryall of the Norfolke witches, about 40 of them +and 20 already executed." <i>Signes and Wonders from +Heaven</i> says that "there were 40 witches arraigned +for their lives and 20 executed."</p> + +<p>1645. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Sixteen women and two +men executed Aug. 27. Forty or fifty more probably +executed a few weeks later. A very large number +arraigned. A manuscript (Brit. Mus., Add. +MSS., 27,402, fol. 104 ff.) mentions over forty true +bills and fifteen or more bills not found. <i>A True +Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches at +St. Edmundsbury</i> (1645); Clarke, <i>Lives of Sundry +Eminent Persons</i>, 172; <i>County Folk-Lore, Suffolk</i> +(Folk-Lore Soc.), 178; Ady, <i>A Candle in the Dark</i>, +104-105, 114; <i>Moderate Intelligencer</i>, Sept. 4-11, +1645; <i>Scottish Dove</i>, Aug. 29-Sept. 6, 1645.</p> + +<p>Stearne mentions several names not mentioned in +the <i>True Relation</i>—names probably belonging to +those in the second group of the accused. Of +most of them he has quoted the confession without +stating the outcome of the cases. They are +Hempstead of Creeting, Ratcliffe of Shelley, Randall +of Lavenham, Bedford of Rattlesden, Wright +of Hitcham, Ruceulver of Powstead, Greenliefe of +Barton, Bush of Barton, Cricke of Hitcham, Richmond +of Bramford, Hammer of Needham, Boreham +of Sudbury, Scarfe of Rattlesden, King of +Acton, Bysack of Waldingfield, Binkes of Haverhill. +In addition to these Stearne speaks of Elizabeth +Hubbard of Stowmarket. Two others from +Stowmarket were tried, "Goody Mils" and "Goody +Low." Hollingsworth, <i>History of Stowmarket</i> +(Ipswich, 1844), 171.</p> + +<p>1645. Melford, Suffolk. Alexander Sussums made confession. +Stearne, 36.</p> + +<p>1645. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. At least nine women indicted, +five of whom were condemned. Three women +acquitted and one man. Many others presented. C. +J. Palmer, <i>History of Great Yarmouth</i>, I, 273-274.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> +<i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, IX, App., pt. I, 320 a; +Henry Harrod in <i>Norfolk Archæol.</i>, IV, 249-251.</p> + +<p>1645. Cornwall. Anne Jeffries confined in Bodmin gaol and +starved by order of a justice of the peace. She +was said to be intimate with the "airy people" and +to cause marvellous cures. We do not know the +charge against her. Finally discharged. William +Turner, <i>Remarkable Providences</i> (London, 1697), +ch. 82.</p> + +<p>1645. Ipswich, Suffolk. Mother Lakeland burnt. <i>The Lawes +against Witches</i> (1645).</p> + +<p>1645. King's Lynn, Norfolk. Dorothy Lee and Grace Wright +hanged. Mackerell, <i>History and Antiquities of +King's Lynn</i>, 236.</p> + +<p>1645. Aldeburgh, Norfolk. Seven witches hanged. Quotations +from the chamberlain's accounts in N. F. +Hele, <i>Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh</i>, 43-44.</p> + +<p>1645. Faversham, Kent. Three women hanged, a fourth tried, +by the local authorities. <i>The Examination, Confession, +Triall and Execution of Joane Williford, Joan +Cariden and Jane Hott</i> (1645).</p> + +<p>1645. Rye, Sussex. Martha Bruff and Anne Howsell ordered +by the "mayor of Rye and others" to be put to the +ordeal of water. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, XIII, +pt. 4, 216.</p> + +<p>1645. Middlesex. Several witches of Stepney accused. <i>Signes +and Wonders from Heaven</i>, 2-3.</p> + +<p>1645-46. Cambridgeshire. Several accused, at least one or +two of whom were executed. Ady, <i>Candle in the +Dark</i>, 135; Stearne, 39, 45; H. More, <i>Antidote +against Atheisme</i>, 128-129. This may have been +what is referred to in Glanvill's <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, +pt. ii, 208-209.</p> + +<p>1646. Northamptonshire. Several witches hanged. One died +in prison. Stearne, 11, 23, 34-35.</p> + +<p>1646. Huntingdonshire. Many accused, of whom at least +ten were examined and several executed, among +them John Wynnick. One woman swam and was +released. John Davenport, <i>Witches of Huntingdon</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> +(London, 1646); H. More, <i>Antidote against Atheisme</i>, +125; Stearne, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20-21, 39, 42.</p> + +<p>1646. Bedfordshire. Elizabeth Gurrey of Risden made confession. +Stearne says a Huntingdonshire witch confessed +that "at Tilbrooke bushes in Bedfordshier +... there met above twenty at one time." Huntingdonshire +witches seem meant, but perhaps not alone. +Stearne, 11, 31.</p> + +<p>c. 1646. Yarmouth, Norfolk. Stearne mentions a woman +who suffered here. Stearne, 53.</p> + +<p>1646. Heptenstall, Yorkshire. Elizabeth Crossley, Mary +Midgley, and two other women examined before two +justices of the peace. <i>York Depositions</i>, 6-9.</p> + +<p>1647. Ely, Cambridgeshire. Stearne mentions "those executed +at Elie, a little before Michaelmas last, ... +also one at Chatterish there, one at March there, +and another at Wimblington there, now lately found, +still to be tryed"; and again "one Moores wife of +Sutton, in the Isle of Elie," who "confessed her +selfe guilty" and was executed; and yet again "one +at Heddenham in the Isle of Ely," who "made a +very large Confession" and must have paid the +penalty. Stearne, 17, 21, 37; Gibbons, <i>Ely Episcopal +Records</i> (Lincoln, 1891), 112-113.</p> + +<p>1647. Middlesex. Helen Howson acquitted. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, III, 124.</p> + +<p>1648. Middlesex. Bill against Katharine Fisher of Stratford-at-Bow +ignored. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, +102.</p> + +<p>1648. Norwich, Norfolk. Two women burnt. P. Browne, +<i>History of Norwich</i> (Norwich, 1814), 38.</p> + +<p>1649. Worcester. A Lancashire witch said to have been tried; +perhaps remanded to Lancashire. <i>A Collection of +Modern Relations.</i> The writer says that he received +the account from a "Person of Quality" who +attended the trial.</p> + +<p>1649. Middlesex. Elizabeth Smythe of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields +acquitted. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 191.</p> + +<p>1649. Middlesex. Dorothy Brumley acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span></p> + +<p>1649. St. Albans. John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott said to +have been hanged for witches. <i>The Divels Delusion</i> +(1649).</p> + +<p>1649. Berwick. Thirty women, examined on the accusation +of a Scotch witch-finder, committed to prison. +Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, III, 99; John Fuller, <i>History +of Berwick</i> (Edinburgh, 1799), 155-156, giving extracts +from the Guild Hall Books; John Sykes, +<i>Local Records</i> (Newcastle, 1833), I, 103-105.</p> + +<p>1649. Gloucester. Witch tried at the assizes. <i>A Collection of +Modern Relations</i>, 52.</p> + +<p>1649-50. Yorkshire. Mary Sykes and Susan Beaumont committed +and searched. The former acquitted, bill +against the latter ignored. <i>York Depositions</i>, 28.</p> + +<p>1649-50. Durham. Several witches at Gateshead examined, +and carried to Durham for trial; "a grave for a +witch." Sykes, <i>Local Records</i>, I, 105; or <i>Denham +Tracts</i> (Folk-Lore Soc.), II, 338.</p> + +<p>1649-50. Newcastle. Thirty witches accused. Fourteen +women and one man hanged, together with a witch +from the county of Northumberland. Ralph Gardiner, +<i>England's Grievance</i> (London, 1655), 108; +Sykes, <i>Local Records</i>, I, 103; John Brand, <i>History +and Antiquities of Newcastle</i> (London, 1789), II, +477-478; Whitelocke, <i>Memorials</i>, III, 128; <i>Chronicon +Mirabile</i> (London, 1841), 92.</p> + +<p>1650. Yorkshire. Ann Hudson of Skipsey charged. <i>York +Depositions</i>, 38, note.</p> + +<p>1650. Cumberland. A "discovery of witches." Sheriff perplexed. +<i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1650</i>, 159.</p> + +<p>1650. Derbyshire. Ann Wagg of Ilkeston committed for +trial. J. C. Cox, <i>Three Centuries of Derbyshire +Annals</i>, II, 88.</p> + +<p>1650. Middlesex. Joan Roberts acquitted. <i>Middlesex County +Records</i>, III, 284.</p> + +<p>1650. Stratford-at-Bow, Middlesex. Witch said to have been +apprehended, but "escaped the law." Glanvill, +<i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, Relation XX.</p> + +<p>1650. Middlesex. Joan Allen sentenced to be hanged. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, III, 284. <i>The Weekly Intelligencer</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> +Oct. 7, 1650, refers to the hanging of a witch +at the Old Bailey, probably Joan.</p> + +<p>1650. Leicester. Anne Chettle searched and acquitted. Tried +again two years later. Result unknown. <i>Leicestershire +and Rutland Notes and Queries</i>, I, 247; James +Thompson, <i>Leicester</i> (Leicester, 1849), 406.</p> + +<p>1650. Alnwick. Dorothy Swinow, wife of a colonel, indicted. +Nothing further came of it. <i>Wonderfull News from +the North</i> (1650).</p> + +<p>1650. Middlesex. Elizabeth Smith acquitted. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, III, 284.</p> + +<p>c. 1650-60. St. Alban's, Herts. Two witches suspected and +probably tried. Drage, <i>Daimonomageia</i> (1665), 40-41.</p> + +<p>1651. Yorkshire. Margaret Morton acquitted. <i>York Depositions</i>, +38.</p> + +<p>1651. Middlesex. Elizabeth Lanam of Stepney acquitted. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 202, 285.</p> + +<p>1651. Colchester, Essex. John Lock sentenced to one year's +imprisonment and four appearances in the pillory. +Brit. Mus., Stowe MSS., 840, fol. 43.</p> + +<p>1652. Yorkshire. Hester France of Huddersfield accused before +the justice of the peace. <i>York Depositions</i>, 51.</p> + +<p>1652. Maidstone, Kent. Six women hanged, others indicted. +<i>A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment +... of six Witches at Maidstone ...</i> by +"H. F. Gent.," 1652; <i>The Faithful Scout</i>, July 30-Aug. +7, 1652; Ashmole's Diary in <i>Lives of Ashmole +and Lilly</i> (London, 1774), 316.</p> + +<p>1652. Middlesex. Joan Peterson of Wapping acquitted on +one charge, found guilty on another, and hanged. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 287; <i>The Witch of +Wapping</i>; <i>A Declaration in Answer to several lying +Pamphlets concerning the Witch of Wapping</i>; <i>The +Tryall and Examinations of Mrs. Joan Peterson</i>; +<i>French Intelligencer</i>, Apr. 6-13, 1652; <i>Mercurius +Democritus</i>, Apr. 7-14, 1652; <i>Weekly Intelligencer</i>, +April 6-13, 1652; <i>Faithful Scout</i>, Apr. 9-16, 1652.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span></p> +<p>1652. London. Susan Simpson acquitted. <i>A True and Perfect +List of the Names of those Prisoners in Newgate</i> +(London, 1652).</p> + +<p>1652. Worcester. Catherine Huxley of Evesham, charged +with bewitching a nine-year-old girl, hanged. Baxter, +<i>Certainty of the World of Spirits</i> (London, 1691), +44-45. Baxter's narrative was sent him by "the now +Minister of the place."</p> + +<p>1652. Middlesex. Temperance Fossett of Whitechapel acquitted. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 208, 288.</p> + +<p>1652. Middlesex. Margery Scott of St Martin's-in-the-Fields +acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i>, 209.</p> + +<p>1652. Scarborough, Yorkshire. Anne Marchant or Hunnam +accused and searched. J. B. Baker, <i>History of +Scarborough</i> (London, 1882), 481, using local +records.</p> + +<p>1652. Durham. Francis Adamson and —— Powle executed. +Richardson, <i>Table Book</i>, I, 286.</p> + +<p>1652. Exeter, Devonshire. Joan Baker committed. Cotton, +<i>Gleanings ... Relative to the History of ... Exeter</i> +(Exeter, 1877), 149.</p> + +<p>1652. Wilts. William Starr accused and searched. <i>Hist. +MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, <i>Various</i>, I, 127.</p> + +<p>1652-53. Cornwall. A witch near Land's End accused, and +accuses others. Eight sent to Launceston gaol. Some +probably executed (see above, p. 218 and footnotes +24, 25). <i>Mercurius Politicus</i>, Nov. 24-Dec. 2, +1653; R. and O. B. Peter, <i>The Histories of Launceston +and Dunheved</i> (Plymouth, 1885), 285. See +also Burthogge, <i>Essay upon Reason and the Nature +of Spirits</i> (London, 1694), 196.</p> + +<p>1653. Wilts. Joan Baker of the Devizes makes complaint +because two persons have reported her to be a witch. +<i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, <i>Various</i>, I, 127. Is this +the Joan Baker of Exeter mentioned a few lines +above?</p> + +<p>1653. Wilts. Joan Price of Malmesbury and Elizabeth Beeman +of the Devizes indicted, the latter committed +to the assizes. <i>Ibid.</i></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span></p> +<p>1653. Yorkshire. Elizabeth Lambe accused. <i>York Depositions</i>, +58.</p> + +<p>1653. Middlesex. Elizabeth Newman of Whitechapel acquitted +on one charge, found guilty on another, and +sentenced to be hanged. <i>Middlesex County Records</i>, +III, 217, 218, 289.</p> + +<p>1653. Middlesex. Barbara Bartle of Stepney acquitted. <i>Ibid.</i>, +216.</p> + +<p>1653. Leeds, Yorkshire. Isabel Emott indicted for witchcraft +upon cattle. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, IX, pt. +1, 325 b.</p> + +<p>1653. Salisbury, Wilts. Anne Bodenham of Fisherton Anger +hanged. <i>Doctor Lamb Revived</i>; <i>Doctor Lamb's +Darling</i>; <i>Aubrey, Folk-Lore and Gentilisme</i> (Folk-Lore +Soc.), 261; Henry More, <i>An Antidote against +Atheisme</i>, bk. III, chap. VII.</p> + +<p>1654. Yorkshire. Anne Greene of Gargrave examined. <i>York +Depositions</i>, 64-65.</p> + +<p>1654. Yorkshire. Elizabeth Roberts of Beverley examined. +<i>Ibid.</i>, 67.</p> + +<p>1654. Wilts. Christiana Weekes of Cleves Pepper, who had +been twice before accused in recent sessions, charged +with telling where lost goods could be found. +"Other conjurers" charged at the same time. +<i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, <i>Various</i>, I, 120. See +above, 1610, Norfolk.</p> + +<p>1654. Exeter. Diana Crosse committed. Cotton, <i>Gleanings +... Relative to the History of ... Exeter</i>, 150.</p> + +<p>1654. Wilts. Elizabeth Loudon committed on suspicion. +<i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, <i>Various</i>, I, 129.</p> + +<p>1654. Whitechapel, Middlesex. Grace Boxe, arraigned on three +charges, acquitted. Acquitted again in 1656. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, III, 223, 293.</p> + +<p>1655. Yorkshire. Katherine Earle committed and searched. +<i>York Depositions</i>, 69.</p> + +<p>1655. Salisbury. Margaret Gyngell convicted. Pardoned by +the Lord Protector. F. A. Inderwick, <i>The Interregnum</i>, +188-189.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span></p> +<p>1655. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Mother and daughter +Boram said to have been hanged. Hutchinson, <i>An +Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft</i>, 38.</p> + +<p>1656. Yorkshire. Jennet and George Benton of Wakefield +examined. <i>York Depositions</i>, 74.</p> + +<p>1656. Yorkshire. William and Mary Wade committed for +bewitching the daughter of Lady Mallory. <i>York +Depositions</i>, 75-78.</p> + +<p>1657. Middlesex. Katharine Evans of Fulham acquitted. +<i>Middlesex County Records</i>, III, 263.</p> + +<p>1657. Middlesex. Elizabeth Crowley of Stepney acquitted, +but detained in the house of correction. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, III, 266, 295.</p> + +<p>1657. Gisborough, Yorkshire. Robert Conyers, "gent.," accused. +<i>North Riding Record Society</i>, V, 259.</p> + +<p>1658. Exeter. Thomas Harvey of Oakham, Rutlandshire, +"apprehended by order of Council by a party of +soldiers," acquitted at Exeter assizes, but detained +in custody. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1658-1659</i>, 169.</p> + +<p>1658. Chard, Somerset. Jane Brooks of Shepton Mallet +hanged. Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> (1681), +pt. ii, 120-122. (Glanvill used Hunt's book of +examinations). J. E. Farbrother, <i>Shepton Mallet; +notes on its history, ancient, descriptive and natural</i> +(1860), 141.</p> + +<p>1658. Exeter. Joan Furnace accused. Cotton, <i>Gleanings ... +Relative to the History of ... Exeter</i>, 152.</p> + +<p>1658. Yorkshire. Some women said to have been accused by +two maids. The woman "cast" by the jury. The +judges gave a "respite." Story not entirely trustworthy. +<i>The most true and wonderfull Narration +of two women bewitched in Yorkshire ...</i> (1658).</p> + +<p>1658. Wapping, Middlesex. Lydia Rogers accused. <i>A More +Exact Relation of the most lamentable and horrid +Contract which Lydia Rogers ... made with the +Divel</i> (1658). See app. A, § 5, for another tract.</p> + +<p>1658. Northamptonshire. Some witches of Welton said to +have been examined. Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> +(1681), pt. ii, 263-268.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span></p> + +<p>1658. Salisbury, Wilts. The widow Orchard said to have +been executed. From a MS. letter of 1685-86, +printed in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. I, +405-410.</p> + +<p>1659. Norwich, Norfolk. Mary Oliver burnt. P. Brown, +<i>History of Norwich</i>, 39. Francis Blomefield, <i>An +Essay towards a Topographical History of the +County of Norfolk</i> (London, 1805-1810), III, 401.</p> + +<p>1659. Middlesex. Elizabeth Kennett of Stepney accused. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, III, 278, 299.</p> + +<p>1659. Hertfordshire. "Goody Free" accused of killing by +witchcraft. <i>Hertfordshire County Sessions Rolls</i>, +I, 126, 129.</p> + +<p>1659-1660. Northumberland. Elizabeth Simpson of Tynemouth +accused. <i>York Depositions</i>, 82.</p> + +<p>1660. Worcester. Joan Bibb of Rushock received £20 damages +for being ducked. <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1856, +pt. I, 39, from a letter of J. Noake of Worcester, +who used the Townshend MSS.</p> + +<p>1660. Worcester. A widow and her two daughters, and a +man, from Kidderminster, tried. "Little proved." +Copied from the Townshend MSS. by Nash, in his +<i>Collections for the History of Worcestershire</i> (1781-1799), +II, 38.</p> + +<p>1660. Newcastle. Two suspected women detained in prison. +Extracts from the Municipal Accounts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne +in M. A. Richardson, <i>Reprints of Rare +Tracts ... illustrative of the History of the Northern +Counties</i> (Newcastle, 1843-1847), III, 57.</p> + +<p>1660. Canterbury, Kent. Several witches said to have been +executed. W. Welfitt ("Civis"), <i>Minutes of Canterbury</i> +(Canterbury, 1801-1802), no. X.</p> + +<p>c. 1660. Sussex. A woman who had been formerly tried at +Maidstone watched and searched. MS. quoted in +<i>Sussex Archæol. Collections</i>, XVIII, 111-113; see +also Samuel Clarke, <i>A Mirrour or Looking Glasse +both for Saints and Sinners</i>, II, 593-596.</p> + +<p>1661. Hertfordshire. Frances Bailey of Broxbourn complained +of abuse by those who believed her a witch. +<i>Hertfordshire County Sessions Rolls</i>, I, 137.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span></p> +<p>1661. Newcastle. Jane Watson examined before the mayor. +<i>York Depositions</i>, 92-93.</p> + +<p>1661. Newcastle. Margaret Catherwood and two other +women examined before the mayor. <i>Ibid.</i>, 88.</p> + +<p>1663. Somerset. Elizabeth Style died before execution. Glanvill, +<i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 127-146. For +copies of three depositions about Elizabeth Style, +see <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1837, pt. ii, 256-257.</p> + +<p>1663. Taunton, Somerset. Julian Cox hanged. Glanvill, +<i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, pt. ii, 191-198.</p> + +<p>1663-64. Newcastle. Dorothy Stranger accused before the +mayor. <i>York Depositions</i>, 112-114.</p> + +<p>1664. Somerset. A "hellish knot" of witches (Hutchinson +says twelve) accused before justice of the peace +Robert Hunt. His discovery stopped by "some of +them in authority." Glanvill, <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i>, +pt. ii, 256-257. But see case of Elizabeth +Style above.</p> + +<p>1664. Somerset. A witch condemned at the assizes. She may +have been one of those brought before Hunt. <i>Cal. +St. P., Dom., 1663-1664</i>, 552.</p> + +<p>1664. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Rose Cullender and Amy +Duny condemned. <i>A Tryal of Witches at ... Bury +St. Edmunds</i> (1682).</p> + +<p>1664. Newcastle. Jane Simpson, Isabell Atcheson and Katharine +Curry accused before the mayor. <i>York Depositions</i>, +124.</p> + +<p>1664. York. Alice Huson and Doll Dilby tried. Both made +confessions. Copied for <i>A Collection of Modern Relations</i> +(see p. 52) from a paper written by the justice +of the peace, Corbet.</p> + +<p>1665. Wilts. Jone Mereweather of Weeke in Bishop's Cannings +committed. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, <i>Various</i>, +I, 147.</p> + +<p>1665. Newcastle. Mrs. Pepper accused before the mayor. +<i>York Depositions</i>, 127.</p> + +<p>1665. Three persons convicted of murder and executed for +killing a supposed witch. Joseph Hunter, <i>Life of +Heywood</i> (London, 1842), 167-168, note.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span></p> + +<p>1666. Lancashire. Four witches of Haigh examined, two +committed but probably acquitted. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., +1665-1666</i>, 225.</p> + +<p>1667. Newcastle, Northumberland. Emmy Gaskin of Landgate +accused before the mayor. <i>York Depositions</i>, +154.</p> + +<p>1667. Norfolk. A fortune-teller or conjuror condemned to +imprisonment. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1667</i>, 30.</p> + +<p>1667. Ipswich, Suffolk. Two witches possibly imprisoned. +Story doubtful. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1667-1668</i>, 4.</p> + +<p>1667. Devizes, Wilts. "An old woman" imprisoned, charged +with bewitching by making and pricking an image. +Blagrave, <i>Astrological Practice</i> (London 1689), +90, 103.</p> + +<p>1667. Lancashire. Widow Bridge and her sister, Margaret +Loy, both of Liverpool, accused. <i>The Moore Rental</i> +(Chetham Soc., 1847), 59-60.</p> + +<p>1668. Durham. Alice Armstrong of Strotton tried, but almost +certainly acquitted. Tried twice again in the next +year with the same result. Sykes, <i>Local Records</i>, II, +369.</p> + +<p>1668. Warwick. Many witches "said to be in hold." <i>Cal. St. +P., Dom., 1668-1669</i>, 25.</p> + +<p>1669. Hertfordshire. John Allen of Stondon indicted for calling +Joan Mills a witch. <i>Hertfordshire County Sessions +Rolls</i>, I, 217.</p> + +<p>1670. Yorkshire. Anne Wilkinson acquitted. <i>York Depositions</i>, +176 and note.</p> + +<p>1670. Latton Wilts. Jane Townshend accused. <i>Hist. MSS. +Comm. Reports, Various</i>. I, 150-151.</p> + +<p>1670. Wilts. Elizabeth Peacock acquitted. See Inderwick's +list of witch trials in the western circuit, in his +<i>Sidelights on the Stuarts</i> (London, 1888), 190-194. +Hereafter the reference "Inderwick" will mean +this list. See also above, p. 269, note.</p> + +<p>1670. Devonshire. Elizabeth Eburye and Aliena Walter acquitted. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1670. Somerset. Anne Slade acquitted on two indictments. +Inderwick.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p> + +<p>1670. Bucks. Ann Clarke reprieved. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., 1670</i>, +388.</p> + +<p>1671. Devonshire. Johanna Elford acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1671. Devonshire. Margaret Heddon acquitted on two indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1671. Falmouth. Several witches acquitted. <i>Cal. St. P., Dom., +1671</i>, 105, 171. Perhaps identical with the three, two +men and a woman, mentioned by Inderwick as acquitted +in Cornwall.</p> + +<p>1672. Somerset. Margaret Stevens acquitted on two indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1672. Devonshire. Phelippa Bruen acquitted on four indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1672. Wilts. Elizabeth Mills acquitted on two indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1672. Wilts. Elizabeth Peacock, who had been acquitted two +years before, acquitted on five indictments. Judith +Witchell acquitted on two, found guilty on a third. +She and Ann Tilling sentenced to execution. They +must have been reprieved. Inderwick; <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. II, p. 489-492.</p> + +<p>1673. Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Durham. At least +twenty-three women and six men accused to various +justices of the peace by Ann Armstrong, who confessed +to being present at witch meetings, and who +acted as a witch discoverer. Some of those whom +she accused were accused by others. Margaret Milburne, +whom she seems not to have mentioned, also +accused, <i>York Depositions</i>, 191-202.</p> + +<p>1674. Northampton. Ann Foster said to have been hanged +for destroying sheep and burning barns by witchcraft. +<i>A Full and True Relation of The Tryal, Condemnation, +and Execution of Ann Foster</i> (1674).</p> + +<p>1674. Middlesex. Elizabeth Row of Hackney held in bail for +her appearance at Quarter Sessions. <i>Middlesex +County Records</i>, IV, 42-43.</p> + +<p>1674. Southton, Somerset. John and Agnes Knipp acquitted. +Inderwick.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p> +<p>1674? (see above, p. 269, note). Salisbury. Woman acquitted, +but kept in gaol. North, <i>Life of North</i>, 130, 131.</p> + +<p>1674-75. Lancashire. Joseph Hinchcliffe and his wife bound +over to appear at the assizes. He committed suicide +and his wife died soon after. <i>York Depositions</i>, +208; Oliver Heywood's <i>Diary</i> (1881-1885), I, 362.</p> + +<p>1675. Southton, Somerset. Martha Rylens acquitted on five +indictments. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1676. Devonshire. Susannah Daye acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1676. Cornwall. Mary Clarkson acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>c. 1679. Ely, Cambridgeshire. Witch condemned, but reprieved. +Hutchinson, <i>Historical Essay concerning +Witchcraft</i>, 41.</p> + +<p>c. 1680. Somerset. Anna Rawlins acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>c. 1680. Derbyshire. Elizabeth Hole of Wingerworth accused +and committed for charging a baronet with witchcraft. +J. C. Cox, <i>Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals</i>, +II, 90.</p> + +<p>1680. Yorkshire, Elizabeth Fenwick of Longwitton acquitted. +<i>York Depositions</i>, 247.</p> + +<p>1682. London. Jane Kent acquitted. <i>A Full and True Account +... but more especially the Tryall of Jane Kent for +Witchcraft</i> (1682).</p> + +<p>1682. Surrey. Joan Butts acquitted. <i>Strange and Wonderfull +News from Yowell in Surry</i> (1681); <i>An Account +of the Tryal and Examination of Joan Buts</i> (1682).</p> + +<p>1682. Devonshire. Temperance Lloyd acquitted on one indictment, +found guilty on another. Susanna Edwards +and Mary Trembles found guilty. All three executed. +Inderwick; North, <i>Life of North</i>, 130; see +also app. A, § 6, above.</p> + +<p>1682-88. Northumberland. Margaret Stothard of Edlingham +accused. E. Mackenzie, <i>History of Northumberland</i>, +II, 33-36.</p> + +<p>1683. London. Jane Dodson acquitted. <i>An Account of the +Whole Proceedings at the Sessions Holden at the +Sessions House in the Old Baily ...</i> (1683).</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span></p> +<p>1683. Somerset. Elenora, Susannah, and Marie Harris, and +Anna Clarke acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1684. Devonshire. Alicia Molland found guilty. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1685. Devonshire. Jane Vallet acquitted on three indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol. II. Devonshire. Agnes Ryder of Woodbury accused, +probably committed. A. H. A. Hamilton, +<i>Quarter Sessions chiefly in Devon</i> (London, 1878), +220.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol. II. Ipswich, Suffolk. A woman in prison. William +Drage, <i>Daimonomageia</i>, 11.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol. II. Herts. Two suspected witches of Baldock +ducked. <i>Ibid.</i>, 40.</p> + +<p>temp. Carol. II. St. Albans, Herts. Man and woman imprisoned. +Woman ducked. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p>temp. Carol. II. Taunton Dean, Somerset. Man acquitted. +North, <i>Life of North</i>, 131.</p> + +<p>1685-86. Malmesbury, Wilts. Fourteen persons accused, among +whom were the three women, Peacock, Tilling and +Witchell, who had been tried in 1672. Eleven set at +liberty; Peacock, Tilling and Witchell kept in prison +awhile, probably released eventually. <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1832, pt. I, 489-492.</p> + +<p>1686. Somerset. Honora Phippan acquitted on two indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1686. Cornwall. Jane Noal, alias Nickless, alias Nicholas, +and Betty Seeze committed to Launceston gaol for +bewitching a fifteen-year-old boy. We know from +Inderwick that Jane Nicholas was acquitted. <i>A +True Account of ... John Tonken of Pensans in +Cornwall</i> (1686).</p> + +<p>1687. York. Witch condemned, probably reprieved. <i>Memoirs +and Travels of Sir John Reresby</i> (London, +1812), 329.</p> + +<p>1687. Dorset. Dewnes Knumerton and Elizabeth Hengler acquitted. +Inderwick. For examination of first see +Roberts, <i>Southern Counties</i>, 525-526.</p> + +<p>1687. Wilts. M. Parle acquitted. Inderwick.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span></p> + +<p>1687. Devonshire. Abigail Handford acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1689. Wilts. Margareta Young condemned but reprieved. +Christiana Dunne acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1690. Taunton, Somerset. Elizabeth Farrier (Carrier), Margaret +Coombes and Ann Moore committed. Coombes +died in prison at Brewton. The other two acquitted +at the assizes. Inderwick; Baxter, <i>Certainty +of the World of Spirits</i>, 74-75.</p> + +<p>1692. Wilts. Woman committed. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, +<i>Various</i>, I, 160.</p> + +<p>1693. Suffolk. Widow Chambers of Upaston committed, died +in gaol. Hutchinson, <i>Historical Essay concerning +Witchcraft</i>, 42.</p> + +<p>1693-94. Devonshire. Dorothy Case acquitted on three indictments. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1693-94. Devonshire. Katherine Williams acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1694. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Mother Munnings of Hartis +acquitted. Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, 43.</p> + +<p>1694. Somerset. Action brought against three men for swimming +Margaret Waddam. <i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, +<i>Various</i>, I, 160.</p> + +<p>1694. Ipswich, Suffolk. Margaret Elnore acquitted. Hutchinson, +44.</p> + +<p>1694. Kent. Ann Hart of Sandwich convicted, but went free +under a general act of pardon. W. Boys, <i>Collections +for an History of Sandwich</i>, 718.</p> + +<p>1694-95. Devonshire. Clara Roach acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1695. Launceston, Cornwall. Mary Guy or Daye acquitted. +Hutchinson, 44-45; Inderwick gives the name as +Maria Daye (or Guy) and puts the trial in Devonshire +in 1696.</p> + +<p>1696. Devonshire. Elizabeth Horner acquitted on three indictments, +Hutchinson, 45; Inderwick. See also +letter from sub-dean Blackburne to the Bishop of +Exeter in Brand, <i>Popular Antiquities</i> (ed. of 1905), +II, 648-649.</p> + +<p>1698-99. Wilts. Ruth Young acquitted. Inderwick.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span></p> +<p>1700. Dorset. Anne Grantly and Margaretta Way acquitted. +Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1700-10. Lancashire. A woman of Chowbent searched and +committed. Died before the assizes. MS. quoted by +Harland and Wilkinson, <i>Lancashire Folk-Lore</i> +(London, 1867), 207; also E. Baines, <i>Lancaster</i>, +II, 203.</p> + +<p>1701. Southwark. Sarah Morduck, who had been before acquitted +at Guildford, and who had unsuccessfully appealed +to a justice in London against her persecutor, +tried and acquitted. Hutchinson, 46. <i>The +Tryal of Richard Hathaway</i> (1702); <i>A Full and +True Account of the Apprehending and Taking of +Mrs. Sarah Moordike</i> (1701); <i>A short Account of +the Trial held at Surry Assizes, in the Borough of +Southwark</i> (1702). See above, app. A, § 7.</p> + +<p>1701. Kingston, Surrey. Woman acquitted. <i>Notes and +Queries</i> (April 10, 1909), quoting from the <i>London +Post</i> of Aug. 1-4, 1701.</p> + +<p>1701-02. Devonshire. Susanna Hanover acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1702-03. Wilts. Joanna Tanner acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1704. Middlesex. Sarah Griffiths committed to Bridewell. +<i>A Full and True Account ... of a Notorious Witch</i> +(London, 1704).</p> + +<p>1705. Northampton. Two women said to have been burned +here. Story improbable. See above, appendix A, +§ 10.</p> + +<p>1707. Somerset. Maria Stevens acquitted. Inderwick.</p> + +<p>1712. Hertford. Jane Wenham condemned, but reprieved. +See footnotes to chapter XIII and app. A, § 9.</p> + +<p>1716. Huntingdon. Two witches, a mother and daughter, +said to have been executed here. Story improbable. +See above, app. A, § 10.</p> + +<p>1717. Leicester. Jane Clark and her daughter said to have +been tried. <i>Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and +Queries</i>, I, 247.</p> + +<p>1717. Leicester. Mother Norton and her daughter acquitted. +Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 35,838, fol. 404.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span></p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> +<p>I am unwilling to close this work without an expression of +my gratitude to the libraries, on both sides of the sea, which +have so generously welcomed me to the use of their books +and pamphlets on English witchcraft—many of them excessively +rare and precious. They have made possible this +study. My debt is especially great to the libraries of the British +Museum and of Lambeth Palace at London, to the Bodleian +Library at Oxford, and in America to the Boston +Athenæum and to the university libraries of Yale and Harvard. +To the unrivalled White collection at Cornell my obligation is +deepest of all.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384-1_1" id="Footnote_384-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384-1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The references in this list, together with the account, in appendix A, +of the pamphlet literature of witchcraft, are designed to take the place +of a formal bibliography. That the list of cases here given is complete +can hardly be hoped. Crude though its materials compel it to be, +the author believes it may prove useful. He hopes in the course of +time to make it more complete, and to that end will gladly welcome +information respecting other trials.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="front" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2> +<div class="minispace"> </div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span></div> + +<p><a name="abbot" id="abbot"></a>Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Footnote_141-1_35">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p>Abbott, Alice, <a href="#Footnote_132-1_16">132 n.</a></p> + +<p>Abingdon, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p><i>Account of the ... Proceedings ... in the Old Baily</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Acton, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p><a name="acts" id="acts"></a><i>Acts of the Privy Council</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_26-1_41">26 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_28-1_44">28 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30-2_53">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Adams, W. H. Davenport, cited, <a href="#Footnote_188-3_76">188 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>Adamson, Francis, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Addison, Joseph, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>-<a href="#Page_341">341</a></p> + +<p>Ady, Thomas, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>-<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Footnote_184-3_63">184 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225-3_48">225 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></span></p> + +<p>Agrippa, Cornelius, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></p> + +<p>Aikin, Lucy, cited, <a href="#Footnote_143-2_44">143 n.</a></p> + +<p>Aldeburgh, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Footnote_191-1_87">191 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Alene, case of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></p> + +<p>Alfred the Great, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></p> + +<p>Allen, Joan, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Alnwick, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Altham, Sir James, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></p> + +<p>Anderson, Sir Edmund, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Footnote_56-1_30">56 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></p> + +<p>Andrews, William, cited, <a href="#Footnote_137-1_24">137 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Anne, Princess of Denmark, her marriage to James I, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></p> + +<p><i>Annual Register</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_141-1_35">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p><i>Archæologia</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_10-1_14">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p><i>Archæologia Cantiana</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_21-3_32">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_29-1_46">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Archer, John, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conducts Cox trial, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a></span></p> + +<p>Armstrong, Ann, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>-<a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Arnold, Mother, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Ashmole, Elias, cited, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></p> + +<p>Ashton, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_188-3_76">188 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>Ashwell, John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Aspine, Martha, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></p> + +<p>Assembly, the witch. <i>See</i> <a href="#sabbath">Sabbath</a></p> + +<p>Assheton, R., <a href="#Footnote_158-1_29">158 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Atcheson, Isabell, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Aubrey, John, his credulity, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_162-1_33">162 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_212-2_15">212 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></span></p> + +<p>Audley, vicar of, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></p> + +<p><i>Autobiography of Edward Underhill</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_13-1_19">13 n.</a></p> + +<p>Avery, "Master," <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>B., R. <i>See</i> <a href="#burton">Burton, Richard</a>.</p> + +<p>Bacon, Francis, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>-<a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_246-2_61">246 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_247-1_62">247 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Baddeley, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_141-3_37">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_142-2_40">142 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Bailey, Frances, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Bailey, the Old, <a href="#Footnote_108-2_20">108 n.</a></p> + +<p>Baines, Edward, cited, <a href="#Footnote_147-4_5">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_149-3_10">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_150-3_13">150 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_158-1_29">158 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Baker, Alexander, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></p> + +<p>Baker, Anne, <a href="#Footnote_133-1_18">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Baker, J. B., cited, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Baker, Joan, of Devizes, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Baker, Joan, of Exeter, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Baker, Mother, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a></p> + +<p>Bakewell, affair of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Baldock, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Bamfield, Ellen, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Bamford, James, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></p> + +<p><a name="bancroft" id="bancroft"></a>Bancroft, Richard, as Bishop of London, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_89">89</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></span></p> + +<p>Bangor, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Barber, Mary, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Bark, Ellen, <a href="#Page_394">394</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span></p> +<p>Barking, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Barlowe, wife of John, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Barnet, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Barringer, Joan, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Barrow, Dr., of Cambridge, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></p> + +<p><a name="barrow" id="barrow"></a>Barrow, Isaac, <a href="#Page_308">308</a> and <a href="#Footnote_308-2_58">n.</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></p> + +<p>Barrow, James, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>-<a href="#Page_237">237</a></p> + +<p>Barrow, John, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Bartell, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Bartham, Doll, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></p> + +<p>Bartham, Oliffe, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Bartle, Barbara, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Barton, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p><a name="barton" id="barton"></a>Barton, Elizabeth, the "Holy Maid of Kent," <a href="#Page_58">58</a></p> + +<p>Basel, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bastard, Alice, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Batcombe, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></p> + +<p>Bate, William, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Bates, Dr., cited, <a href="#Footnote_337-4_12">337 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bateson, Mary, cited, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Bath and Wells, Bishop of, <a href="#Footnote_162-2_34">162 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bath and Wells, chancellor of the Bishop of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></p> + +<p>Batte, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></p> + +<p>Baxter, Richard, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>-<a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_216-3_21">216 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_337-3_11">337 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></span></p> + +<p>Beaumont, John, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_273-2_28">273 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_275-1_29">275 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Beaumont, Susan, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Beaver, Anne, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Bedford, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></p> + +<p>Bedford, trials at, no, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Bedfordshire, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-4_39">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Bee, Jesse, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></p> + +<p>Beeman, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Beigel, H., <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>Bekker, Balthazar, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></p> + +<p>Bel and the Dragon, book of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></p> + +<p>Belcher, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Belvoir Castle, witchcraft at, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a></p> + +<p>Bennett, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a></p> + +<p>Bennett, Gervase, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p> + +<p><a name="bentham" id="bentham"></a>Bentham, Thomas, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bentley, Alice, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Benton, George, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Benton, Jennet, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Beriman, Helen, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Berkhampstead, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></p> + +<p>Berks, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Bernard, Richard, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>-<a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Footnote_303-2_49">303 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></span></p> + +<p>Berrye, Agnes, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Berwick, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252-2_83">252 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Beverley, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Bexwell, Rosa, <a href="#Footnote_52-1_26">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Bibb, Joan, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Bill, Arthur, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Footnote_132-2_17">132 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Bilson, boy of. <i>See</i> <a href="#bilston">Bilston</a></p> + +<p><a name="bilson" id="bilson"></a>Bilson, Thomas, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p><a name="bilston" id="bilston"></a>Bilston, boy of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Binkes, Anne, <a href="#Footnote_192-4_93">192 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Bishop Burton, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Bishop's Cannings, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Blackburne, Launcelot, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Blackmail, charge of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></p> + +<p>Blagrave, Joseph, cited, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Blomefield, Francis, cited, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Bodenham, Anne, trial of, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>-<a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Bodine (Bodin), <a href="#Footnote_69-1_26">69 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bodmin, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Bohemia, Queen of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p> + +<p>Bokes-wharfe, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Bolingbroke, Roger, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Boram, mother and daughter, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Boram, wife of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Boreham of Sudbury, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Bottesford, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a></p> + +<p>Boulton, Richard, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>-<a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></p> + +<p>Bourne, John, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Bovet, Richard, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> and <a href="#Footnote_303-2_49">n.</a></p> + +<p>Bower, Edmond, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></p> + +<p><a name="bowes" id="bowes"></a>Bowes, Lady, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></p> + +<p>Bowes, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_167-1_7">167 n.</a></p> + +<p>Boxe, Grace, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Boyle, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_337">337</a> and <a href="#Footnote_337-5_13">n.</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions of, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>-<a href="#Page_306">306</a> and <a href="#Footnote_306-1_51">n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Boys, the Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_331">331</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a></p> + +<p>Boys, William, cited <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bracton, cited, <a href="#Footnote_128-2_11">128 n.</a></p> + +<p>Bradley, Alice, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Bradwell, Stephen, cited, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Bragge, Francis, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>-<a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>-<a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Bramford, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Branche, Anne, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Brand, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_208-3_7">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_321-2_20">321 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Brandeston, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-5_40">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></p> + +<p>Braynford, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Brerely, Alice, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Brereton, Sir William, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_158-2_30">158 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Brewton, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Bridewell, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Bridge, widow, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p><a name="bridgeman" id="bridgeman"></a>Bridgeman, Henry, Bishop of Chester, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Bridges, Agnes, <a href="#Footnote_30-4_55">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></p> + +<p>Brightling, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></p> + +<p>Brinley, John, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></p> + +<p>Bristol, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Britannicus, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></p> + +<p>Britton, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></span></p> + +<p>Brome, Richard, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></p> + +<p>Bromley, Sir Edward, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p> + +<p>Brooks, Jane, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Brown, Agnes, trial of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Brown, Joan, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></p> + +<p>Browne, Margaret, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Browne, P., cited, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Browne, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_183-2_58">183 n.</a></p> + +<p>Browne, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></p> + +<p>Broxbourn, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Bruen, Philippa, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Bruff, Martha, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Brumley, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Bucer, Martin, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a></p> + +<p>Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a></p> + +<p>Buckinghamshire, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Bulcock, Jane and John, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Bull, Edmund, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Bullinger, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p><a name="burghley" id="burghley"></a>Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, <a href="#Footnote_19-1_26">19 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_25-2_40">25 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></p> + +<p>Burman, Charles, cited, <a href="#Footnote_216-2_20">216 n.</a></p> + +<p>Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, <a href="#Footnote_248-4_71">248 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_268-3_19">268 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Burnham-Ulpe, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></p> + +<p>Burntwood, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Burr, George L., cited, <a href="#Footnote_3-1_2">3 n.</a></p> + +<p>Burthogge, Richard, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_218-2_25">218 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="burton" id="burton"></a>Burton, Richard ("R. B."), <a href="#Footnote_339-1_16">339 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></span></p> + +<p>Burton, Robert, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></p> + +<p>Burton, boy of, named by Ben Jonson, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#darling">Darling, Thomas</a></span></p> + +<p>Burton-upon-Trent, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Bury, Thomas, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></p> + +<p>Bury St. Edmunds, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>-<a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Bush, of Barton, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Buske, Mother, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Butcher, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Butler's <i>Hudibras</i> on Matthew Hopkins, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></p> + +<p>Butts, Joan, trial of, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Byett, William, <a href="#Footnote_46-3_20">46 n.</a></p> + +<p>Byles, Andrew, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></p> + +<p>Byrom, Margaret, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></p> + +<p>Bysack, of Waldingfield, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Calamy, Edmund, the elder, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></p> + +<p><i>Calendar of Patent Rolls</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_7-1_7">7 n.</a></p> + +<p><i>Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for the Advance of Money</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_164-3_3">164 n.</a></p> + +<p><i>Calendars of State Papers</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_26-1_41">26 n.</a> and <i>passim</i></p> + +<p>Calvin, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">87 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cambridge, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-4_39">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Cambridge University, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Queen's College, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christ's College, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Emmanuel College, <a href="#Footnote_228-2_3">228 n.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trinity College, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></span></p> + +<p>Cambridgeshire, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Camfield, Andrew, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Camfield, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span></p> +<p>Canterbury, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Canterbury, Archbishop of.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See</i> <a href="#warham">Warham, William</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#cranmer">Cranmer, Thomas</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#parker">Parker, Matthew</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#grindall">Grindall, Edmund</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#whitgift">Whitgift, John</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#bancroft">Bancroft, Richard</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#abbot">Abbot, George</a></span></p> + +<p>Carbury, John, Earl of, <a href="#Footnote_339-2_17">339 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cariden, Joan, <a href="#Footnote_201-2_108">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Carnarvon, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Carr, Robert, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></p> + +<p>Carrier, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Carrington, John, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Footnote_319-1_17">319 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></p> + +<p>Carshoggil, laird of, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p> + +<p>Carter, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_170-2_15">170 n.</a></p> + +<p>Casaubon, Meric, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>-<a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_240-1_39">240 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_293-1_21">293 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_294-1_23">294 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></span></p> + +<p>Cason, Joan, trial of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Castleton, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Cecil, William, Lord Burghley. <i>See</i> <a href="#burghley">Burghley</a></p> + +<p>Celles, Cystley, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></p> + +<p><i>Certaine Informations</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Chalmers, Alexander, cited, <a href="#Footnote_328-3_38">328 n.</a></p> + +<p>Chamberlain, letter of, <a href="#Footnote_115-2_41">115 n.</a></p> + +<p>Chambers, widow, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Chandler, Alice, case of, <a href="#Footnote_38-1_7">38 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Chandler, Elizabeth, <a href="#Footnote_187-4_73">187 n.</a></p> + +<p>Chandler, Mary, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></p> + +<p>Chandler, R., <a href="#Page_212">212</a></p> + +<p>Chandos, daughter of Lady, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Chapbook, the witch, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></p> + +<p>Chard, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Charles I, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of skepticism as to witches in his reign, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a></span></p> + +<p>Charles II, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">witchcraft in his reign, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></span></p> + +<p>Charlewood, J., <a href="#Page_350">350</a></p> + +<p>Chatterish, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Chattox, Anne, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Footnote_126-1_4">126 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></p> + +<p>Chauncy, Arthur, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></p> + +<p>Chauncy, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Chelmsford, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Footnote_188-3_76">188 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1566 at, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1579 at, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1589 at, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1645 at, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></span></p> + +<p>Cherrie, of Thrapston, case of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_185">185</a></p> + +<p>Cheshire, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Footnote_232-1_21">232 n.</a></p> + +<p>Chester, Bishop of. <i>See</i> <a href="#bridgeman">Bridgeman, Henry</a></p> + +<p>Chettell, "Mistress," <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Chettle, Anne, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Chichester, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#harsnett">Harsnett, Samuel</a></span></p> + +<p>Chinting, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Chishull, the Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_328">328</a></p> + +<p>Chittam, Henry, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Chowbent, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Christ's College, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></p> + +<p><i>Chronicon Mirabile</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_208-3_7">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Church, the trials for sorcery under, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statute of Henry VIII not aimed to limit, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state ready to reclaim jurisdiction from, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">penalties under, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gradual transfer to state of witchcraft cases, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>-<a href="#Page_31">31</a></span></p> + +<p>Clarke, of Keiston, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>-<a href="#Page_186">186</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Ann, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_175">175</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Helen, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Jane, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, Samuel, cited, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Clarke, William, his letter to Speaker Lenthall, <a href="#Footnote_225-3_48">225 n.</a></p> + +<p>Clarkson, Mary, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Clerkenwell, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Cleves, Pepper, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Cleworth, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Footnote_149-3_10">149 n.</a></p> + +<p>Clinton, Lord, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></p> + +<p>Clouues, William, <a href="#Footnote_24-1_38">24 n.</a></p> + +<p>Clutterbuck, Robert, cited, <a href="#Footnote_328-4_39">328 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cobbett, William, cited, <a href="#Footnote_102-2_10">102 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cobham, Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p> + +<p>Cobham, Lord, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span></p> +<p>Cock, Susan, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>Cocwra, Samuel, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Coke, Sir Edward, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_128-2_11">128 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></span></p> + +<p>Colchester, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Cole, Henry, Jewel's controversy with, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">16 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cole, Thomas, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>Coleman, John, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p><i>Collection of Modern Relations</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Footnote_339-1_16">339 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_146-1_1">146 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_181-5_50">181 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></span></p> + +<p>Collingham, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Coman, widow, case of, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a></p> + +<p>Commission of Oyer and Terminer, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></p> + +<p>Committee of Both Kingdoms, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></p> + +<p>Commons' <i>Journal</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">17 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_103-1_11">103 n.</a></p> + +<p>Conyers, Robert, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Cooke, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Cooke, Mother, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Coombes, Margaret, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Cooper, C. H. and T., cited, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></p> + +<p>Cooper, John, <a href="#Footnote_82-1_18">82 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cooper, Thomas, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>-<a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></span></p> + +<p>Corbet, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Corbolt. <i>See</i> <a href="#godbolt">Godbolt</a></p> + +<p>Cornwall, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Cornwall, Henry, <a href="#Footnote_170-2_15">170 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cosyn, Edmund, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> + +<p>Cotta, John, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_130-2_13">130 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_230-4_14">230 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_231-2_19">231 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Cotton, William, cited, <a href="#Footnote_217-1_22">217 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_221-5_36">221 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_224-1_44">224 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Council of State, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></p> + +<p><a name="council" id="council"></a><i>Council Register</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_152-2_17">152 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_154-2_20">154 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155-1_23">155 n.</a></p> + +<p>"Countess" (Margaret Russel), <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p><i>County Folk Lore, Suffolk</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_165-1_4">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_176-4_28">176 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-5_40">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_194-1_97">194 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Court of High Commission, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>-<a href="#Page_87">87</a></p> + +<p>Coventry, <a href="#Footnote_232-1_21">232 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Coventry and Lichfield, Bishop of. <i>See</i> <a href="#bentham">Bentham, Thomas</a></p> + +<p>Coverdale, Miles, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Coverley, Sir Roger de, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></p> + +<p>Cowper, Earl and Countess of, <a href="#Footnote_328-4_39">328 n.</a></p> + +<p>Cox, John Charles, cited, <a href="#Footnote_137-1_24">137 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_219-2_29">219 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_324-1_25">324 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Cox, Julian, trial of, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Cox, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Coxe, Francis, trial of, <a href="#Footnote_31-1_56">31 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Cranbourne, Viscount, <a href="#Footnote_115-3_42">115 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p><a name="cranmer" id="cranmer"></a>Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Footnote_58-3_4">58 n.</a></p> + +<p>Crearey, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Creeting, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Cricke, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p><i>Criminal Chronology of York Castle</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p> + +<p>Cromwell, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></p> + +<p>Cromwell, Lady, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></p> + +<p>Cromwell, Oliver, <a href="#Footnote_48-1_21">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Footnote_212-1_14">212 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Footnote_237-2_34">237 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></p> + +<p>Cromwell, Richard, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></p> + +<p>Cromwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></p> + +<p>Crosse, Diana, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Crossley, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Crossley, James, cited, <a href="#Footnote_124-1_3">124 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147-4_5">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></p> + +<p>Crouch, Nathaniel, <a href="#Footnote_339-1_16">339 n.</a></p> + +<p>Crump, Hannah, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></p> + +<p>Cruther, Joseph, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></p> + +<p>Cudworth, Ralph, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></p> + +<p>Cullender, Rose, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Culpepper, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Cumberland, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Cunny, Joan, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></p> + +<p>Curry, Katharine, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Cushman, L. W., cited, <a href="#Footnote_244-1_51">244 n.</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Damages awarded accused, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></p> + +<p>Danvers, Sir John, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p> + +<p>Darcy, Brian, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Footnote_44-1_16">44 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Footnote_46-2_19">46 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></p> + +<p><a name="darling" id="darling"></a>Darling, Thomas, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span></p> + +<p>Darrel, John, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>-<a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></span></p> + +<p>Davenport, John, <a href="#Footnote_187-3_72">187 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></p> + +<p>Daventry, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p> + +<p>Davies, J. S., cited, <a href="#Footnote_8-2_10">8 n.</a></p> + +<p>Davis, Ralph, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Daye, Mary, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Daye, Susannah, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Deacon, John, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></p> + +<p>Dee, John, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></p> + +<p>Deir, Mrs., <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Dekker, Thomas, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_112-3_33">112 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></span></p> + +<p>Del Rio, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p><a name="demdike" id="demdike"></a>Demdike, Old (Elizabeth Southerns), <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_128">128</a></p> + +<p>Denham, <a href="#Footnote_74-1_1">74 n.</a></p> + +<p>Denham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></p> + +<p><i>Denham Tracts</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_30-1_52">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_219-1_28">219 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Denison, John, <a href="#Footnote_78-2_11">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></p> + +<p>Denton, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></p> + +<p>Derby, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Derby, Archdeacon of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> + +<p>Derby, Earl of, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Derbyshire, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Descartes, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></p> + +<p>Devell, Mother, <a href="#Footnote_28-2_45">28 n.</a></p> + +<p>Device, Alizon, <a href="#Footnote_111-1_29">111 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Device, Elizabeth, <a href="#Footnote_108-3_21">108 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Device, James, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Device, Jennet, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a></p> + +<p>Devizes, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Devonshire, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>-<a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Dewse, Mrs., <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p><i>Diary, A, or an Exact Journall</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_174-1_19">174 n.</a></p> + +<p>Dickonson, Frances, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a></p> + +<p>Dilby, Doll, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Distribution of witchcraft, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a></p> + +<p><i>Doctrine of Devils, The</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>-<a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Footnote_302-4_47">302 n.</a></p> + +<p>Dodgson, Nathan, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Dodson, Jane, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Doncaster, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Dorrington, Doctor, <a href="#Footnote_50-1_24">50 n.</a></p> + +<p>Dorset, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Dorset, Marquis of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></p> + +<p>Drage, William, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_256-2_3">256</a>-<a href="#Footnote_258-1_8">258 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_279-4_36">279 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></span></p> + +<p>Drew, widow, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Ducke, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p><a name="dugdale" id="dugdale"></a>Dugdale, Richard, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>-<a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a></p> + +<p>Duncane, Geillis, torture of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></p> + +<p>Dungeon, Mother, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Dunne, Christiana, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Duny, Amy, trial of, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Durham, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Footnote_219-1_28">219 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Durham, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his <i>Injunctions,</i> cited, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Durham, Depositions ... from the Court of</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_21-1_30">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_29-4_49">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Durham, vicar-general of the Bishop of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></p> + +<p>Dutten, Mother, <a href="#Footnote_28-2_45">28 n.</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>E., T., "Maister of Art," <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Earle, Katherine, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>East Anglia, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></p> + +<p>Eburye, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Eckington, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Edlingham, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Edmonds, Mr., <a href="#Footnote_235-5_29">235 n.</a></p> + +<p>Edmonton, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Footnote_136-2_23">136 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Edward I, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></p> + +<p>Edward IV, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Edward VI, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></p> + +<p>Edwards, Richard, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a></p> + +<p>Edwards, Susanna, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>-<a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Elford, Johanna, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of executions in her reign compared with number under James, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spectral evidence in her reign, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distribution of witch cases, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></span></p> + +<p>Ellyse, Joan, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span></p> + +<p>Elnore, Margaret, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Ely, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Ely, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p>Emerson, a priest, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Emerson, Ann, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Emott, Isabel, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Emmanuel College, Cambridge, <a href="#Footnote_228-2_3">228 n.</a></p> + +<p>Endor, witch of, Scot's explanation of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Filmer's explanation of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Muggleton's explanation of, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster's explanation of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></span></p> + +<p>Enfield, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Enger, Master, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> and <a href="#Footnote_118-1_51">n.</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a></p> + +<p>Essex, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Footnote_70-2_28">70 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_90-1_39">90 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Footnote_228-2_3">228 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Essex, Countess of, <a href="#Footnote_144-2_48">144 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p>Essex, Earl of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p>Ettrick, Anthony, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></p> + +<p>Evans, Katharine, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Evesham, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Exeter, <a href="#Footnote_31-1_56">31 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Exeter, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Exeter College, Oxford, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></p> + +<p>Eye, witch of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>F., H., <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></p> + +<p>Fairclough, Samuel, <a href="#Footnote_166-1_5">166 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></p> + +<p>Fairfax, Edward, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_102-1_9">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_142-4_42">142 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_250-1_75">250 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></p> + +<p><i>Faithful Scout, The</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_213-1_16">213 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Falmouth, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Farbrother, J. E., cited, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p><i>Farington Papers</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_155-4_26">155 n.</a></p> + +<p>Farnworth, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_240-2_40">240 n.</a></p> + +<p>Farrier, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></p> + +<p>Faversham, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Female juries, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></p> + +<p>Fenner, Edward, in Warboys trials, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>-<a href="#Page_50">50</a></p> + +<p>Fenwick, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Ferris, Sibilla, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Fian, Dr., <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a></p> + +<p>Filmer, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_241-2_45">241 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Finchingfield, <a href="#Footnote_228-2_3">228 n.</a></p> + +<p>Finchley, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Fisher, Katharine, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Fisherton-Anger, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Fishwick, cited, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></p> + +<p>Fize, Henry, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p><i>Flagellum Dæmonum</i>, <a href="#Footnote_79-2_14">79 n.</a></p> + +<p>Fleta, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></p> + +<p>Flower, Joan and her daughters (Margaret and Philippa), case of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119-1_53">119 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Fludd, Robert, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></p> + +<p>Foljambe, Mrs. <i>See</i> <a href="#bowes">Bowes, Lady</a></p> + +<p><i>Folk Lore Journal, The</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_24-1_38">24 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Folkestone, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Ford, John, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Fortescue, Sir Anthony, case of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> + +<p><a name="fortescue" id="fortescue"></a>Fortescue, Sir John, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>"Foscue, Master." <i>See</i> <a href="#fortescue">Fortescue, Sir John</a></p> + +<p>Fossett, Temperance, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Foster, Ann, trial of, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Fowles, Susanna, case of, <a href="#Footnote_323-2_23">323 n.</a></p> + +<p>Foxcroft, H. C., cited, <a href="#Footnote_341-3_24">341 n.</a></p> + +<p>France, Hester, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Francis, Elizabeth, her two trials, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Francis, Mother, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Frankfort, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Frankland, Richard, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></p> + +<p>Fraunces, Margaret, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Free, Goody, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Freeman, Alice, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Freeman, Mary, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> + +<p><i>French Intelligencer</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_213-1_16">213 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_215-1_17">215 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Fulham, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Fuller, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_207-1_2">207 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fuller, Thomas, cited, <a href="#Footnote_90-4_42">90 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_139-5_31">139 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_140-2_33">140 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></p> + +<p><i>Fustis Dæmonum</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_79-2_14">79 n.</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Gabley, Mother, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Gaddesden, Little, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Gairdner, James, cited, <a href="#Footnote_9-3_13">9 n.</a></p> + +<p>Gallis, Richard, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></p> + +<p>Gardiner, Mr. and Mrs., <a href="#Page_324">324</a></p> + +<p>Gardiner, the Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Gardiner, Catherine, <a href="#Footnote_132-1_16">132 n.</a></p> + +<p>Gardiner, Ralph, cited, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Footnote_209-1_10">209 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Gargrave, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Garve, Mother, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Gaskin, Emmy, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Gateshead, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Footnote_219-1_28">219 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Gaule, John, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>-<a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>-<a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></p> + +<p>Gee, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_139-4_30">139 n.</a></p> + +<p>Geneva, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">87 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></p> + +<p><i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_95-1_1">95 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_143-3_45">143 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_160-1_32">160 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_269-2_21">269 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_279-2_34">279 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Gerard, Sir Gilbert, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>Gerish, W. B., cited, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Gibbons, A., cited, <a href="#Footnote_189-1_77">189 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Gibson, "Coz.," <a href="#Page_222">222</a></p> + +<p>Gifford, George, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Footnote_57-1_1">57 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>-<a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></span></p> + +<p>Gill, Helena, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Gilston, <a href="#Footnote_328-4_39">328 n.</a></p> + +<p>Gilston, Matthew, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></p> + +<p>Gisborough, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Glance of a witch, instances of, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></p> + +<p>Glanvill, Joseph, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Footnote_196-2_100">196 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>-<a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_221-4_35">221 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_222-2_39">222 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_251-1_79">251 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_260-1_11">260 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_308-3_59">308 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></span></p> + +<p>Globe theatre, The, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></p> + +<p>Gloucester, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Gloucester, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p> + +<p>Gloucester, Richard of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Glover, Mary, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Glover, Stephen, cited, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p><a name="godbolt" id="godbolt"></a>Godbolt, John, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></p> + +<p>Godfrey, Agnes, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Goldsmith, Mr., <a href="#Page_332">332</a></p> + +<p>"Good Witches," <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a></p> + +<p>Goodcole, Henry, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Gooderidge, Alse, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Gooding, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a></p> + +<p>Gough, Richard, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Goulding, R. W., cited, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Gordon, Rev. Alexander, cited, <a href="#Footnote_317-1_10">317 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_319-1_17">319 n.</a></p> + +<p>Grainge, William, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></p> + +<p>Grame, Margaret, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>"Grantam's curse," <a href="#Page_88">88</a></p> + +<p>Grantly, Anne, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Great Staughton, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a></p> + +<p>"Great T.," "Mother W. of," <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p><a name="great" id="great"></a>Great Yarmouth, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#yarmouth">Yarmouth</a></span></p> + +<p>Greedie, Joan, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Green, Ellen, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Greene, Anne, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Greene, Ellen, <a href="#Footnote_133-1_18">133 n.</a></p> + +<p>Greenleife, Mary (of Alresford), <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-<a href="#Page_171">171</a></p> + +<p>"Greenliefe of Barton," <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Greenslet, Ferris, cited, <a href="#Footnote_286-1_1">286 n.</a></p> + +<p>Greenwel, Thomas, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></p> + +<p>Greenwich, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></p> + +<p>Grevell, Margaret, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></p> + +<p>Griffiths, Sarah, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Grimes, Mr., <a href="#Page_332">332</a></p> + +<p>Grimston, Sir Harbottle, <a href="#Footnote_167-1_7">167 n.</a></p> + +<p><a name="grindall" id="grindall"></a>Grindall, Edmund, Bp. of London, then Abp. of Canterbury, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Guildford, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></p> + +<p>Guilford, Baron. <i>See</i> <a href="#north">Francis North</a></p> + +<p>Gunpowder Plot, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></p> + +<p>Gurney, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Guy, Mary, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Gyngell, Margaret, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Habakkuk, transportation of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></p> + +<p>Hackett, Margaret, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Hackney, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Haigh, <a href="#Page_414">414</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hale, Sir Matthew, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>-<a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Footnote_339-1_16">339 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></p> + +<p>Hale, William H., cited, <a href="#Footnote_10-1_14">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_21-5_34">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_22-1_36">22 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_29-1_46">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Halifax, Marquis of, opinion of, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></p> + +<p>Hall, John, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></p> + +<p>Hall, Joseph, Bishop, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></p> + +<p>Hall, Mary, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></p> + +<p>Halliwell-Phillips, J. O., <a href="#Footnote_142-4_42">142 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_306-2_52">306 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hallybread, Rose, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>Hallywell, Henry, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> and <a href="#Footnote_303-2_49">n.</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></p> + +<p>Hamilton, A. H. A., cited, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Hammer, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Hammersmith, case at, <a href="#Footnote_323-2_23">323 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hammond, of Westminster, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Hampstead, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Hampton Court, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></p> + +<p>Handford, Abigail, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Hanover, Susanna, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Hansen, J., cited, <a href="#Footnote_3-2_3">3 n.</a></p> + +<p>Harington, Sir John, <a href="#Footnote_140-1_32">140 n.</a></p> + +<p>Harland and Wilkinson, cited, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Harmondsworth, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Harris, Alice, <a href="#Footnote_132-1_16">132 n.</a></p> + +<p>Harris, Eleonora, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Harris, Elizabeth, <a href="#Footnote_201-2_108">201 n.</a></p> + +<p>Harris, Marie, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Harris, Susannah, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Harrison, Mr., <a href="#Page_44">44</a></p> + +<p>Harrison, Henry, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Harrison, Johanna, of Royston, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Harrison, Margaret, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></p> + +<p>Harrison, William, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></p> + +<p>Harrod, H., cited, <a href="#Footnote_182-1_51">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Harrogate, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></p> + +<p>Harrow, Weald, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p><a name="harsnett" id="harsnett"></a>Harsnett, Samuel, later Abp. of York, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>-<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>-<a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>-<a href="#Page_393">393</a></span></p> + +<p>Hart, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Hart, Anne, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Hart, Prudence, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></p> + +<p>Hart Hall, Oxford, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></p> + +<p>Hartis, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Hartley, Edmund, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Harvey, Gabriel, <a href="#Footnote_69-1_26">69 n.</a></p> + +<p>Harvey, Joane, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Harvey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Harvey, William, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a></p> + +<p>Harwood, Goodwife, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Hatfield Peverel, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></p> + +<p>Hathaway, Richard, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>-<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></p> + +<p>Hathericke, Sara, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Hatsell, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></p> + +<p>Haverhill, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Hazlitt, W. C., cited, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>-<a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></p> + +<p>Heddenham, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Heddon, Margaret, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Hele, N. F., cited, <a href="#Footnote_183-1_57">183 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_191-1_87">191 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Hemloke, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></p> + +<p>Hempstead, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Hengler, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Henry IV, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Henry VI, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Henry VIII, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_58-3_4">58 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#statutes">Statutes</a>.</span></p> + +<p>Heptenstall, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Herbert, Sir Edward, <a href="#Footnote_311-1_63">311 n.</a></p> + +<p>Herd, Annis, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Hereford, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hertford, trials at <a href="#Page_134">134</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>-<a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Hertfordshire, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p><i>Hertfordshire County Sessions, Rolls</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_21-1_30">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_221-2_33">221 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Hewitt, Katherine, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Heylyn, Peter, cited, <a href="#Footnote_143-1_43">143 n.</a></p> + +<p>Heyrick, Robert, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Heywood, Oliver, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></span></p> + +<p>Heywood, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_306-2_52">306 n.</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">play of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>-<a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions expressed in play of, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_244-4_54">244 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Hicke, Mr., <a href="#Page_379">379</a></p> + +<p>Hinchcliffe, Joseph, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p><i>Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_114-3_39">114 n.</a>, and <i>passim</i> thereafter</p> + +<p>Hitcham, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span></p> +<p>Hitchin, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></p> + +<p>Hoarstones, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></p> + +<p>Hobart, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p> + +<p>Hobbes, Thomas, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>-<a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></p> + +<p>Holborn, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Hole, Elizabeth, case of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></p> + +<p>Holinshed, cited, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Footnote_59-5_9">59 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Holland, Henry, <a href="#Footnote_72-1_38">72 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hollingsworth, A. G., cited, <a href="#Footnote_183-3_59">183 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Holt, Sir John, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nullified statute of James I;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gave repeated acquittals, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>-<a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his ruling on the water ordeal, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></span></p> + +<p>Homes, Nathaniel, opinions of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_240-3_41">240 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Hooke, William, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hopkins, James, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></p> + +<p>Hopkins, Matthew, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a></p> + +<p>Hopwood, Mr., <a href="#Footnote_79-2_14">79 n.</a></p> + +<p>Horace, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></p> + +<p>Horner, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Hott, Jane, <a href="#Footnote_201-2_108">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Houghton, Lord, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Housegoe, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Howard, Henry, later Earl of Northampton, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></p> + +<p>Howell, James, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></p> + +<p>Howell, T. B. and T. J., cited, <a href="#Footnote_116-2_44">116 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_144-2_48">144 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_233-1_22">233 n.</a></p> + +<p>Howsell, Anne, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Howson, Helen, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Hubbard, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Huddersfield, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Hudson, Ann, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Hughes, Lewis, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Hulton, John, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></p> + +<p>Humphrey, of Gloucester, Duke, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p> + +<p>Hunnam, Anne, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Hunniman, Joice, <a href="#Footnote_162-2_34">162 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Hunt, widow, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Hunt, Joan, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Hunt, Robert, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Hunter, Joseph, cited, <a href="#Footnote_92-1_46">92 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_256-1_2">256 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Huntingdon, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Footnote_185-4_68">185 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_237-2_34">237 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_314-1_2">314 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Huntingdonshire, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>-<a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Huson, Alice, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Hutchinson, Francis, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>-<a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_11-1_16">11 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-4_39">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_321-2_20">321</a>-<a href="#Footnote_323-1_22">323 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_328-4_39">328 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></span></p> + +<p>Huxley, Catherine, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Ilkeston, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Images, alleged use of in witchcraft, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>-<a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a></p> + +<p>Incendiarism ascribed to witchcraft, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></p> + +<p>Inderwick, F. A., cited, <a href="#Footnote_201-1_107">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225-1_46">225 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_226-3_51">226 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_268-1_17">268 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_269-1_20">269 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_270-1_22">270 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_311-1_63">311 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>-<a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Ipswich, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Jackson, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>James I, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Footnote_90-2_40">90 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>-<a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229-5_10">229 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>-<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His Scottish experience, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his <i>Dæmonologie</i>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his statute and its effect, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distribution of witchcraft in his realm, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his changing attitude, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>-<a href="#Page_145">145</a></span></p> + +<p>James II, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></p> + +<p>James, G. P. R., cited, <a href="#Footnote_340-2_21">340 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_342-1_25">342 n.</a></p> + +<p>Jeffreys, George, Baron, <a href="#Footnote_311-1_63">311 n.</a></p> + +<p>Jeffries, Anne, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Jenkinson, Helen, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Jennings, Lady, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Jeopardy, neglect of legal restriction on, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> and <a href="#Footnote_128-2_11">n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_145-3_53">145 n.</a></p> + +<p><a name="jewel" id="jewel"></a>Jewel, John, Bishop of Salisbury, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>-<a href="#Page_17">17</a></p> + +<p>Joan of Arc, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span></p> + +<p>Johnson, Margaret, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></p> + +<p>Johnson, W. S., cited, <a href="#Footnote_244-3_53">244 n.</a></p> + +<p>Johnstone, James, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></p> + +<p>Jollie, Thomas, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>-<a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>-<a href="#Page_373">373</a></p> + +<p>Jones, J. O., cited, <a href="#Footnote_164-1_1">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_181-5_50">181 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_182-2_52">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_188-3_76">188 n.</a></p> + +<p>Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>-<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Jordan, Jane, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Jorden, Dr. Edward, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Jourdemain, Margery, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Jurdie, Jone, <a href="#Page_396">396</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Keiston, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></p> + +<p>Kelly, William, cited, <a href="#Footnote_141-1_35">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Kelyng, Sir John, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></p> + +<p>Kemp, Ursley, trial of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></p> + +<p>Kennet, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Kent, <a href="#Footnote_21-1_30">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Kent, Holy Maid of. <i>See</i> <a href="#barton">Barton, Elizabeth</a></p> + +<p>Kerke, Anne, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Kerke, Joan, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></p> + +<p>Kidderminster, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Kimbolton, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></p> + +<p>King, of Acton, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>King, Peter, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></p> + +<p><a name="lynn" id="lynn"></a>King's Lynn, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Kingston, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Kingston-upon-Hull, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Kittredge, G. L., cited, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Knipp, Agnes and John, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Knott, Elizabeth, <a href="#Footnote_208-4_8">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Knowles, Sir William, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></p> + +<p>Knumerton, Dewnes, <a href="#Page_417">417</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Lake, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_115-3_42">115 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Lakeland, Mother, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Laleham, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Lambe, Dr., <a href="#Page_211">211</a></p> + +<p>Lambe, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Lambeth, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></p> + +<p>Lanam, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Lancashire, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>-<a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Starchie affair, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1612, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1634, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>-<a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dugdale affair of 1689, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>-<a href="#Page_319">319</a></span></p> + +<p>Lancaster, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229-5_10">229 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Lancaster, chancellor of the Duchy of, <a href="#Footnote_152-3_18">152 n.</a></p> + +<p>Landgate, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Landis, Margaret, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>Land's End, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>-<a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Langton, Walter, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></p> + +<p>Lathom, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Latimer, John, cited, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Latton, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Launceston, <a href="#Footnote_218-1_24">218 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Lavenham, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Law, John, <a href="#Footnote_111-1_29">111 n.</a></p> + +<p>Law, T. G., cited, <a href="#Footnote_74-2_2">74 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-1_35">87 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></p> + +<p>Lawe, Alison, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Lea, H. C., his definition of a witch, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_3-2_3">3 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_99-1_6">99 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Leach, Jeffrey, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Lecky, W. E. H., <a href="#Page_196">196</a></p> + +<p>Lee, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Leech, Anne, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></p> + +<p>Leeds, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Leepish, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Legge, cited, <a href="#Footnote_138-1_25">138 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225-3_48">225 n.</a></p> + +<p>Leicester, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119-1_53">119 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>-<a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p><i>Leicester, Records of the Borough of</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_54-1_28">54 n.</a></p> + +<p>Leicestershire, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Footnote_133-1_18">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p><i>Leicestershire and Rutland, Notes and Queries</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_218-3_26">218 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Levingston, Anne, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></p> + +<p>Lewes, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Lichfield, Bishop of (Walter Langton), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(Thomas Morton), <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span></p> + +<p>Liebermann, F., cited, <a href="#Footnote_2-1_1">2 n.</a></p> + +<p>Lincoln, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119-1_53">119 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trials of 1618-1619, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></span></p> + +<p>Lincoln, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></p> + +<p>Lincolnshire, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Lingwood, Joan, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Linneston, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Linton, Mrs. Lynn, cited, <a href="#Footnote_29-2_47">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_95-1_1">95 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Lister, Mr., <a href="#Footnote_111-1_29">111 note</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></p> + +<p>Little Gaddesden, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Liverpool, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Lloyd, Temperance, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>-<a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Lloyd, William, Bishop of Worcester, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></p> + +<p>Lloynd's wife, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></p> + +<p>Lock, John, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Locke, John, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></p> + +<p>Lodge, Edmund, cited, <a href="#Footnote_139-1_27">139 n.</a></p> + +<p>Lodge, Sir Oliver, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></p> + +<p>Londesdale, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>London, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30-4_55">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Footnote_210-1_12">210 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>-<a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>London, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Footnote_9-3_13">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30-3_54">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#grindall">Grindall, E.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#bancroft">Bancroft, R.</a></span></p> + +<p><i>London Post</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Long, Sir James, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></p> + +<p>Longwitton, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Lords' <i>Journal</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_102-2_10">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_103-1_11">103 n.</a></p> + +<p>Lord's Prayer, testing of witches by, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></p> + +<p>Lothbury, <a href="#Footnote_30-4_55">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a></p> + +<p>Loudon, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Louth, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Low, Goody, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Lower, M. A., cited, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Lowes, John, case of, <a href="#Footnote_165-1_4">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-<a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></p> + +<p>Lowestoft, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></p> + +<p>Lowndes, cited, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Loy, Margaret, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Lucas, Hugh, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></p> + +<p>Lucas, Jane, <a href="#Footnote_110-3_28">110 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></p> + +<p>Luther, Martin, attitude of, towards exorcism, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">87 n.</a></p> + +<p>Lyme, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Lynn. <i>See</i> <a href="#lynn">King's Lynn</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Mackenzie, E., cited, <a href="#Footnote_259-2_10">259 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Mackerell, Benjamin, cited, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Mackie, S. J., cited, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p><i>Magazine of Scandall</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_176-3_27">176 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_197-2_102">197 n.</a></p> + +<p>Magick, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Maidstone, cases at, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>-<a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Maitland, S. R., cited, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></p> + +<p>Malborne, Sir John, book of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></p> + +<p>Maldon, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Footnote_70-2_28">70 n.</a></p> + +<p>Malking Tower, meeting of witches at, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Mallory, Lady Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Malmesbury, alarm at, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Malter, wife of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Manchester, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></p> + +<p><a name="manners" id="manners"></a>Manners, Francis, Earl of Rutland, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Manners, Lord Francis, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a></p> + +<p>Manners, Lord Henry, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a></p> + +<p>Manners, Lady Katherine, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a></p> + +<p>Manningtree, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></p> + +<p>Mansfield, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></p> + +<p>Manship, cited, <a href="#Footnote_182-1_51">182 n.</a></p> + +<p>Manwood, Sir Roger, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></p> + +<p>Marchant, Anne, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Margaret, Mother, <a href="#Footnote_28-2_45">28 n.</a></p> + +<p>Marks, use of as a test of witchcraft, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></p> + +<p>Martin, Dr., <a href="#Page_323">323</a></p> + +<p>Mary I, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></p> + +<p>Mary, Queen of Scots, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></p> + +<p>Mascon, Demon of, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Footnote_337-5_13">337 n.</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mason, of Faversham, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></p> + +<p>Mason, James, and his opinions, <a href="#Footnote_229-4_9">229 n.</a></p> + +<p><a name="massachusetts" id="massachusetts"></a>Massachusetts, trials in, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Mathers, the (Cotton and Increase), <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></p> + +<p>Matthews, Grace, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>-<a href="#Page_217">217</a></p> + +<p>Mayhall, John, cited, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Meakins, Bridget, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Meere, John, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Melford, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Melton, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p><i>Mercurius Aulicus</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p><i>Mercurius Civicus</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p><i>Mercurius Democritus</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_213-1_16">213 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_251-3_81">251 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p><i>Mercurius Politicus</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_218-1_24">218 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Mereweather, Jone, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Merlin, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></p> + +<p>Merril, Goodman, <a href="#Footnote_171-1_16">171 n.</a></p> + +<p>Merriman, R. B., cited, <a href="#Footnote_74-2_2">74 n.</a></p> + +<p>Mersam, Rose, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Mewkarr Church, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Middlesex, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Footnote_208-4_8">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>-<a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-<a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>-<a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>-<a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p><i>Middlesex County Records</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_21-6_35">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_220-2_31">220 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, and <i>passim</i> thereafter</p> + +<p>Middleton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></p> + +<p>Midgley, Mary, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Midwife as a witch, <a href="#Page_21">21</a> and <a href="#Footnote_21-2_31">n.</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>-<a href="#Page_259">259</a></p> + +<p>Milburne, Jane, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></p> + +<p>Milburne, Margaret, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Miller, Agnes, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Mills, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Mills, Joan, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Milner, Ralph, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Milnes, R. Monckton, <a href="#Footnote_102-1_9">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></p> + +<p>Mils, Goody, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Milton, John, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></p> + +<p>Milton, Miles, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Mistley-cum-Manningtree, <a href="#Footnote_164-2_2">164 n.</a></p> + +<p>Mob law, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></p> + +<p><i>Moderate Intelligencer</i>, its opinion of the Bury executions in 1645, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_177-2_30">177 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_180-1_41">180 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></span></p> + +<p>Molland, Alicia, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Mompesson affair, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></p> + +<p>Mondaye, Agnes, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p><a name="montague" id="montague"></a>Montague, James, Bp. of Winchester, <a href="#Footnote_97-1_4">97 n.</a></p> + +<p>Montgomery, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Moone, Margaret, <a href="#Footnote_170-2_15">170 n.</a></p> + +<p><a name="moordike" id="moordike"></a>Moordike, Sarah, case of, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>-<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Moore, wife of, <a href="#Footnote_189-3_79">189 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Moore, Ales, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Moore, Ann, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Moore, Mary, <a href="#Page_363">363</a></p> + +<p><i>Moore Rental, The</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Morduck, Sarah. <i>See</i> <a href="#moordike">Moordike</a></p> + +<p>More, George, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_78-3_12">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_79-1_13">79 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_80-1_15">80 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></span></p> + +<p>More, Henry, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_211-1_13">211 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></span></p> + +<p>More, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_58-3_4">59 n.</a></p> + +<p>Mortimer, Jane, <a href="#Footnote_52-1_26">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Morton, Margaret, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Morton, Thomas, Bishop of Lichfield, <a href="#Footnote_141-3_37">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></p> + +<p>Much, Barfield, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Muggleton, Lodowick, and witchcraft, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_295-5_29">295 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Munnings, Mother, trial of, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Muschamp, Mrs., <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a></p> + +<p>Muschamp, George, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>N., N., <a href="#Footnote_318-5_16">318 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></p> + +<p>Nall, J. G., cited, <a href="#Footnote_181-2_47">181 n.</a></p> + +<p>Napier, Dr., <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Napier, Barbara, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p> + +<p>Nash, J. R., cited, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Nash, Thomas, cited, <a href="#Footnote_69-1_26">69 n.</a></p> + +<p>Navestock, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Naylor, Joane, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Needham, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nelson, Richard, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Nevelson, Anne, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>New England. <i>See</i> <a href="#massachusetts">Massachusetts</a></p> + +<p>New Romney, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></p> + +<p>Newbury, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Newcastle, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Newell, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></p> + +<p>Newgate, <a href="#Footnote_183-2_58">183 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p><i>Newgate, A True and Perfect List of the Prisoners in</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Newman, Ales, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Newman, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Newman, William, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Newmarket, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></p> + +<p>Newton, Isaac, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></p> + +<p>Nicholas (or Nickless), Jane, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Nichols, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_134-1_19">134 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_141-1_35">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Nicholson, Brinsley, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Footnote_70-1_27">70 n.</a></p> + +<p>Nicolas, Sir Harris, cited, <a href="#Footnote_8-1_9">8 n.</a></p> + +<p>Noake, J., <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Noal, Jane, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Norfolk, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-<a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>-<a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>-<a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p><i>Norfolk Archæology</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Norrington, Alice, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Norrington, Mildred, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></p> + +<p><a name="north" id="north"></a>North, Francis, Baron Guilford, <a href="#Footnote_269-1_20">269 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></p> + +<p>North, Roger, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_261-1_12">261 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_269-1_20">269 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_271-2_24">271 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_278-1_32">278 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></span></p> + +<p>North Allerton, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>North Riding (of Yorkshire), <a href="#Page_117">117</a></p> + +<p>North Riding Record Society, <a href="#Footnote_114-1_37">114 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_117-3_49">117 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_162-2_34">162 n.</a></p> + +<p>Northampton, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119-1_53">119 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Footnote_314-1_2">314 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>-<a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Northampton, Henry Howard, Earl of, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></p> + +<p>Northamptonshire, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Footnote_200-2_106">200 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p><i>Northamptonshire Handbook</i>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>-<a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p><i>Northamptonshire Historical Collections</i>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a></p> + +<p>Northfield, Thomas, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Northfleet, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Northumberland, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Footnote_208-3_7">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Norton, mother and daughter, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Norwich, <a href="#Footnote_7-1_7">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Norwich, Bishop of, <a href="#Footnote_7-1_7">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></p> + +<p><i>Notes and Queries</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_164-2_2">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_321-2_20">321 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Nottingham, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p><i>Nottingham, Records of the Borough of</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Nottinghamshire, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></p> + +<p>Nowell, Roger, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></p> + +<p>Nutter, Alice, trial of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Nutter, Christopher, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></p> + +<p>Nutter, Robert, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Oakham, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Ogle, Henry, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Footnote_259-2_10">259 n.</a></p> + +<p>Old Bailey, <a href="#Footnote_108-2_20">108 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></p> + +<p>Oliver, Mary, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Onslow, Speaker, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></p> + +<p>Orchard, widow, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Orchard, N., <a href="#Footnote_296-3_32">296 n.</a></p> + +<p>Oriel College, Oxford, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></p> + +<p>Orme, W., cited, <a href="#Footnote_337-3_11">337 n.</a></p> + +<p>Osborne, Francis, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>-<a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_141-1_35">141 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246-1_60">246 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Owen, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_287-1_3">287 n.</a></p> + +<p>Owen, and Blakeway, cited, <a href="#Footnote_21-2_31">21 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Oxford, Samuel Parker, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></p> + +<p>Oxford, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Footnote_146-1_1">146 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span></p> + +<p>Oxford University, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hart Hall, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oriel College, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trinity College, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a></span><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Pacy, Mr., <a href="#Page_265">265</a></p> + +<p>Padiham, <a href="#Footnote_150-1_11">150 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Padston, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Palmer, C. J., cited, <a href="#Footnote_182-1_51">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Palmer, John, <a href="#Footnote_208-4_8">208 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pannel, Mary, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Paracelsus, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></p> + +<p>Paris, University of, formulated theory concerning pacts with Satan, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></p> + +<p><a name="parker" id="parker"></a>Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a></p> + +<p>Parker, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></p> + +<p>Parker, Thomas, Earl of Macclesfield, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>-<a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Footnote_332-1_49">332 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></p> + +<p>Parkhurst, John, Bishop of Norwich, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Parle, M., <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p><i>Parliamentary History</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_12-1_17">12 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_102-2_10">102 n.</a></p> + +<p>Peacock, a schoolmaster, tortured, <a href="#Footnote_115-2_41">115 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Peacock, Edward, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Peacock, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Pearson, Margaret, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Pechey, Joan, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Peck, Francis, cited, <a href="#Footnote_172-2_18">172 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Peckham, Sir George, <a href="#Footnote_74-1_1">74 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pelham, <a href="#Footnote_151-2_15">151 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pellican, cited, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pemberton, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></p> + +<p>Pembroke, Simon, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></p> + +<p>Pendle Hill, or Forest, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Pepper, Mrs., <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Pepys, Samuel, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></p> + +<p>Pereson, Jennet, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p><i>Perfect Diurnal, A</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Perkins, William, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>-<a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></p> + +<p>Perry, William, the "boy of Bilston," <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> + +<p>Peter Martyr, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">16 n.</a></p> + +<p>Peter, R. and O. B., cited, <a href="#Footnote_218-1_24">218 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Peterson, Joan, case of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>-<a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Petty treason, its penalty not to be confused with that of witchcraft, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></p> + +<p>Phillips, Goody, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></p> + +<p>Phillips, John, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></p> + +<p>Phillips, Mary, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Phippan, Honora, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Pickering, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Footnote_131-1_14">131 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pickering, Sir Gilbert, <a href="#Footnote_131-1_14">131 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pickering, Henry, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></p> + +<p>Pickering, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_228-2_3">228 n.</a></p> + +<p>Pickerings, the, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></p> + +<p>Pico della Mirandola, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></p> + +<p>Piers, Anne, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Pike, L. O., cited, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Pillory, punishment of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></p> + +<p>Pilton, Margaret, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Pinder, Rachel, <a href="#Footnote_30-4_55">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Pitcairn, Robert, cited, <a href="#Footnote_95-1_1">95 n.</a></p> + +<p>Plato, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></p> + +<p><i>Pleasant Treatise of Witches, A</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></p> + +<p>Plummer, Colonel, <a href="#Footnote_328-4_39">328 n.</a></p> + +<p>Poeton, Edward, cited, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Pole, Arthur, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> + +<p>Pole, Edmund, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> + +<p>Pollock and Maitland, cited, <a href="#Page_6">6</a> and <a href="#Footnote_6-1_5">n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_7-1_7">7 n.</a></p> + +<p>Popham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></p> + +<p>Potts, Thomas, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>-<a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_105-1_15">105</a>-<a href="#Footnote_128-2_11">128 n.</a>, <i>passim</i>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></span></p> + +<p>Powell, Sir John, <a href="#Footnote_272-1_25">272 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>-<a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>Powell, Lady, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>-<a href="#Page_215">215</a></p> + +<p>Powell, William, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>Powle, ——, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Powstead, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Pregnancy, plea of, in delay of execution, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p> + +<p>Prentice, Joan, <a href="#Page_348">348</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presbyterian party, its part in Hopkins crusade, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a></p> + +<p>Prestall, John, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Preston, Jennet, <a href="#Footnote_111-1_29">111 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Price, Joan, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Privy Council, its dealings with sorcerers, in the later Middle Ages, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its campaign against conjurers under Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Abingdon trials, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30-2_53">30 n.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Chelmsford trials, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dee's case, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Darrel's, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its part in the statute of James I, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Lancashire trials of 1633, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Somerset cases of 1664, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also <a href="#acts">Acts of the Privy Council</a></i> and <a href="#council"><i>Council Register</i></a>.</span></p> + +<p><i>Protestant Post Boy, The</i>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>Prowting, Mary, <a href="#Page_402">402</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Queen's College, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>R., G., <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>R., H., <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Rainsford, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>-<a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></p> + +<p>Rames, Nicholas, wife of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></p> + +<p>Ramsay, Sir J. R., cited, <a href="#Footnote_9-1_11">9 n.</a></p> + +<p>Ramsbury, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Rand, Margaret, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Randall, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Randall, of Lavenham, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Randoll, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Ratcliffe, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Ratcliffe, Agnes, <a href="#Footnote_136-2_23">136 n.</a></p> + +<p>Rattlesden, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Rawlins, Anna, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Raymond, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></p> + +<p>Read, Joan, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></p> + +<p>Read, Margaret, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Read, Simon, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Redfearne, Anne, <a href="#Footnote_126-1_4">126 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>-<a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Redman, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></p> + +<p>Repington, Philip, Bp. of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p> + +<p>Reresby, Sir John, <a href="#Footnote_272-1_25">272 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></span></p> + +<p>Rhymes, Witch, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></p> + +<p><a name="rich" id="rich"></a>Rich, Robert, Earl of Warwick, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></p> + +<p>Richard III, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Richardson, M. A., cited, <a href="#Footnote_117-2_48">117 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_219-1_28">219 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Richmond, of Bramford, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Richmond (Yorkshire), <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Richmond and Lenox, Duke of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></p> + +<p>Risden, <a href="#Footnote_188-1_74">188 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Rivet, John, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></p> + +<p>Roach, Clara, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Roberts, Alexander, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_117-1_47">117 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_231-3_20">231 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</span></p> + +<p>Roberts, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Roberts, George, cited, <a href="#Footnote_279-2_34">279 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Roberts, Joan, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Robey, Isabel, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Robinson, Edmund, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></p> + +<p>Robson, Jane, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Rochester, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Rodes, Sara, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></p> + +<p>Rogers, Lydia, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Roper, Margaret, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Rose, Goodwife, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Rossington, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Rous, Francis, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></p> + +<p>Row, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Roxburghe Club, cited, <a href="#Footnote_95-1_1">95 n.</a></p> + +<p>Royal Society, the, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>-<a href="#Page_309">309</a></p> + +<p>Royston, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></p> + +<p>Ruceulver, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Rushock, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Russel, Margaret, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Rutland, Earl of. <i>See</i> <a href="#manners">Manners</a></p> + +<p>Rutlandshire, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Rutter, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Ryder, Agnes, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Rye, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Rylens, Martha, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Ryley, Josia, <a href="#Page_393">393</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rymer, cited, <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>S., Alice, <a href="#Footnote_52-1_26">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p><a name="sabbath" id="sabbath"></a>Sabbath, the Witch, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>,<a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>-<a href="#Page_282">282</a></p> + +<p>Saffron Walden, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Saint Alban's, <a href="#Footnote_208-4_8">208 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252-1_82">252 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Saint Andrew's in Holborne, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Saint Giles's, Northampton, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Saint John's, Kent, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Saint Katharine's, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Saint Lawrence, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Saint Leonard's, Shoreditch, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Saint Martin's-in-the-Fields, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Saint Mary's, Nottingham, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> + +<p>Saint Osyth's, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Saint Paul's, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public penance in, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></span></p> + +<p>Saint Paul's, Dean of, <a href="#Footnote_10-2_15">11 n.</a></p> + +<p>Saint Peter's, Kent, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Saint Saviour's, Southwark, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Salem. <i>See</i> <a href="#massachusetts">Massachusetts</a></p> + +<p>Salisbury, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Salisbury, Bishop of. <i>See</i> <a href="#jewel">Jewel, John</a></p> + +<p>Salmesbury, witches of, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Salop (Shropshire), <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Sammon, Margerie, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Footnote_45-1_17">45 n.</a></p> + +<p>Sampson, Agnes, torture of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></p> + +<p>Samuel, Agnes, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></p> + +<p><a name="samuel" id="samuel"></a>Samuel, Alice, trial of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a></p> + +<p>Samuel, John, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></p> + +<p>Samuel, Mother. <i>See</i> <a href="#samuel">Alice Samuel</a></p> + +<p>Samuels, the (of Warboys), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Sandwich, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Sanford, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Sawyer, Elizabeth, trial of, <a href="#Footnote_108-2_20">108 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Footnote_136-2_23">136 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Scarborough, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Scarfe, of Rattlesden, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Schwebel, Johann, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Scory, John, Bishop of Hereford, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Scot, Margery, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Scot, Reginald, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Footnote_294-2_24">294 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_20-3_29">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_28-1_44">28 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_46-1_18">46 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_296-4_33">296 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></span></p> + +<p>Scot, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></p> + +<p><i>Scotland, Register of the Privy Council of</i>, cited <a href="#Footnote_96-2_3">96 n.</a></p> + +<p><i>Scotland and the Commonwealth</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></p> + +<p>Scots-Hall, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></p> + +<p>Scott, John, cited, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_199-1_104">199 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Scottish Dove, The</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Seaford, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Seccombe, Thomas, cited, <a href="#Footnote_164-1_1">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_181-5_50">181 n.</a></p> + +<p>Seeze, Betty, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Selden, John, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>-<a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_247-6_67">247 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_248-1_68">248 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Serjeantson, Rev. R. M., <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Sewel, William, <a href="#Footnote_296-3_32">296 n.</a></p> + +<p>Shadbrook, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Shadwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his opinions, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a></span></p> + +<p>Shakespeare, William, used Harsnett, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">allusions in <i>Twelfth Night</i> of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his witch-lore, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></span></p> + +<p>Shalock, Anthony, <a href="#Footnote_171-1_16">171 n.</a></p> + +<p>Shaw, Elinor, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></p> + +<p>Sheahan, J. J., cited, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Shelley, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Shelley, Jane, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Shepton, Mallet, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Sherlock, Thomas, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>Ship Tavern, at Greenwich, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></p> + +<p>Shore, Jane, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Shoreditch, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></p> + +<p>Shrewsbury, Earl of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19-1_26">19 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></p> + +<p>Shrewsbury, Duke of, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></p> + +<p>Shropshire (Salop), <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p><i>Shuttleworths, House and Farm Accounts of the</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Simmons, Margaret, <a href="#Page_388">388</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span></p> + +<p>Simpson, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Simpson, Jane, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Simpson, Robert, cited, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p>Simpson, Susan, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Sinclar (or Sinclair), George, cited, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Skipsey, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Slade, Anne, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Slingsby, Sir William, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></p> + +<p>Smith, of Chinting, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Charlotte Fell, cited, <a href="#Footnote_53-1_27">53 n.</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Elleine, <a href="#Footnote_39-2_9">39 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Mary, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Smith, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_25-2_40">25 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Smithfield, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p> + +<p>Smythe, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Smythe, Katharine, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Somers, William, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Somerset, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>-<a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Somerset, the protector, repeal of felonies during his protectorate, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></span></p> + +<p>Sorcery, distinguished from witchcraft, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>-<a href="#Page_4">4</a></p> + +<p>Southampton, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Southampton, Earl of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></p> + +<p>Southcole, Justice, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></p> + +<p>Southcote, John, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></p> + +<p>Southerns, Elizabeth. <i>See</i> <a href="#demdike">Demdike</a></p> + +<p>Southton, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Southwark, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Southwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p> + +<p>Southworth. <i>See</i> <a href="#thompson">Master Thompson</a></p> + +<p>Sowerbutts, Grace, part in Salmesbury cases, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></p> + +<p><i>Spectator, The</i>, <a href="#Footnote_341-1_22">341 n.</a></p> + +<p>Spectral evidence, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Footnote_131-2_15">131 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>-<a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>-<a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>-<a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Footnote_279-2_34">279 n.</a></p> + +<p>Speier, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Spencer, Anne, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Spencer, Mary, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Spokes, Helen, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Staffordshire, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Stanford Rivers, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></p> + +<p>Stanhope, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Stanmore, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Star Chamber, Dee examined by the, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></p> + +<p>Starchie, Mrs., <a href="#Footnote_79-1_13">79 n.</a></p> + +<p>Starchie, John, <a href="#Footnote_149-3_10">149 n.</a></p> + +<p>Starchie, Nicholas, children of, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p> + +<p>Starr, William, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></p> + +<p>Stationers' <i>Registers</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></p> + +<p><a name="statutes" id="statutes"></a>Statutes:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1 Edward VI, cap. xii (repeal of felonies), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 Henry VIII, cap. xi, <a href="#Footnote_10-2_15">10 n.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">33 Henry VIII, cap. viii, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>-<a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5 Elizabeth, cap. xvi, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1 James I, cap. xii, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>-<a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></span></p> + +<p>Staunton, Mother, <a href="#Footnote_39-1_8">39 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Stearne, John, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_205">205</a> <i>passim</i> (in text and <a href="#Footnote_164-2_2">notes</a>), <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>-<a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</span></p> + +<p>Stebbing, Henry, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Steele, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></p> + +<p>Stephen, Sir J. F., cited, <a href="#Footnote_10-1_14">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_11-1_16">11 n.</a></p> + +<p>Stephen, Leslie, cited, <a href="#Footnote_287-2_4">287 n.</a></p> + +<p>Stephens, Edward, <a href="#Footnote_339-1_16">339 n.</a></p> + +<p>Stepney, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Sterland, Mr., <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> + +<p>Stevens, Margaret, <a href="#Page_415">415</a></p> + +<p>Stevens, Maria, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Stoll, Elmer, cited, <a href="#Footnote_244-1_51">244 n.</a></p> + +<p>Stonden, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Stothard, Margaret, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Stow, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_59-5_9">59 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></p> + +<p>Stowmarket, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Stranger, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Strangridge, Old, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></p> + +<p>Strassburg, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Stratford-at-Bow, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span></p> +<p>Strotton, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Strutt, the Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></p> + +<p>Strype, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">16 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_17-1_23">17 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_25-1_39">25 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_26-1_41">26 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_27-1_43">27 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></p> + +<p>Stuart, Charles, Duke of Richmond and Lenox, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></p> + +<p>Studley Hall, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></p> + +<p>Style, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Sudbury, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Suffolk, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Footnote_165-1_4">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Footnote_176-1_25">176 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p><i>Suffolk Institute of Archæology, Proceedings of</i>, <a href="#Footnote_176-1_25">176 n.</a></p> + +<p>Surey, affair of. <i>See</i> <a href="#dugdale">Dugdale</a></p> + +<p>Surrey, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Sussex, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p><i>Sussex Archæological Collections</i>, <a href="#Footnote_283-1_41">283 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Sussums, Alexander, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Sutton, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Sutton, Mary, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Footnote_118-1_51">118 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Sutton, Mother, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Swan, John, <a href="#Footnote_90-2_40">90 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></span></p> + +<p>Swan Inn, Maidstone, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p> + +<p>Swane, Goodwife, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Swinow, Colonel, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></p> + +<p>Swinow, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>-<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Swithland, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Swynbourne, Richard, wife of, <a href="#Page_393">393</a></p> + +<p>Sykes, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_30-1_52">30 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Sykes, Mary, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>T., R., <a href="#Page_295">295</a></p> + +<p>Talbot, Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>-<a href="#Page_342">342</a></p> + +<p>Talbot, George, Earl of Shrewsbury, <a href="#Footnote_19-1_26">19 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></p> + +<p>Tanner, Joanna, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p><i>Tatler, The</i>, <a href="#Footnote_342-2_26">342 n.</a></p> + +<p>Taunton, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Taunton-Dean, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Taylor, Robert, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></p> + +<p>Taylor, Zachary, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>-<a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a></p> + +<p>Tedsall, Agnes, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>Tedworth, affair of, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>-<a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Footnote_303-2_49">303 n.</a></p> + +<p>Tempest, Henry, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></p> + +<p>Temple, Sir William, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></p> + +<p>Tendering, John, <a href="#Footnote_46-3_20">46 n.</a></p> + +<p>Test of bleeding of dead body, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of repetition of certain words, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of thatch-burning, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of swimming (see <a href="#water">Water, ordeal of</a>)</span></p> + +<p>Theodore of Tarsus, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></p> + +<p>Therfield, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>Theydon, Mount, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Thievery and Witchcraft, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></p> + +<p>Thirple, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></p> + +<p>Thirsk, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Thompson, James, cited, <a href="#Footnote_201-1_107">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Thompson, Katherine, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p><a name="thompson" id="thompson"></a>Thompson, Master, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></p> + +<p>Thorne, Anne, accuser of Jane Wenham, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>-<a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>-<a href="#Page_336">336</a></p> + +<p>Thorneton, Jane, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Thorpe, Benjamin, cited, <a href="#Footnote_2-1_1">2 n.</a></p> + +<p>Thrapston, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_185">185</a></p> + +<p>Throckmorton, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></p> + +<p>Throckmortons, the, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></p> + +<p>Throgmorton, George, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Throgmorton, Lady Frances, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Thurlow, Grace, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></p> + +<p>Tichmarsh, <a href="#Footnote_131-1_14">131 n.</a></p> + +<p>Tilbrooke-bushes, <a href="#Footnote_188-1_74">188 n.</a></p> + +<p>Tilling, Ann, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Tolbooth, the, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p> + +<p>Torture, of Alse Gooderidge, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by the bootes, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Peacock, <a href="#Footnote_115-2_41">115 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">perhaps used at Lincoln, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unknown to English law, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Lowes, by walking, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>-<a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hopkins's and Stearne's theory and practice as to, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocated by Perkins, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by scratching, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by swimming (see <a href="#water">Water, ordeal of</a>)</span></p> + +<p>Tottenham, <a href="#Page_399">399</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span></p> + +<p>Towns, independent jurisdiction of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></p> + +<p>Townshend, Jane, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Tradescant, John, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></p> + +<p>Transportation of witches through the air, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></p> + +<p>Treasure-seekers, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></p> + +<p>Tree, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Trefulback, Stephen, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Trelawny, Sir Jonathan, Bishop of Exeter, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></p> + +<p>Trembles, Mary, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>-<a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Trinity College, Oxford, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Master of. <i>See</i> <a href="#barrow">Isaac Barrow</a></span></p> + +<p>Turner, William, cited, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p><i>Twelfth Night</i>, allusions in, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></p> + +<p><i>Two Terrible Sea-Fights</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_225-3_48">225 n.</a></p> + +<p>Tyburn, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>Tynemouth, <a href="#Page_412">412</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p><i>Underhill, Edward, Autobiography of</i>, cited, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></p> + +<p>Upaston, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Upney, Joan, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></p> + +<p>Upsala, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></p> + +<p>Urwen, Jane, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Utley, hanged at Lancaster, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></p> + +<p>Uxbridge, <a href="#Footnote_74-1_1">74 n.</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Vairus, Leonardus, <a href="#Footnote_58-2_3">58 n.</a></p> + +<p>Vallet, Jane, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Van Helmont, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></p> + +<p>Varden, J. T., cited, <a href="#Footnote_194-1_97">194 n.</a></p> + +<p>Vaughan, Joan, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></p> + +<p>Vaughans, the two (Henry and Thomas), <a href="#Page_286">286</a></p> + +<p>Vaux, Lord, <a href="#Footnote_74-1_1">74 n.</a></p> + +<p>Vernon, James, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>-<a href="#Page_342">342</a></p> + +<p>Vetter, Theodor, cited, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<p>Vicars, Anne, <a href="#Page_383">383</a></p> + +<p>Vickers, K. H., cited, <a href="#Footnote_9-1_11">9 n.</a></p> + +<p><i>Victoria History of Essex</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_90-1_39">90 n.</a></p> + +<p>Virley, John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>W., Mother, of Great T., <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>W., Mother, of W. H., <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>"W. W." and the St. Osyth's pamphlet, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Footnote_62-1_14">62 n.</a></p> + +<p>Waddam, Margaret, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Wade, Mary, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Wade, William, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Wadham, Thomas, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Wagg, Ann, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></p> + +<p>Wagstaffe, John, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>-<a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></p> + +<p>Wakefield, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Waldingfield, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>Walker, widow, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></p> + +<p>Walker, Ellen, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Walker, John, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></p> + +<p>Walker, John (another), cited, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></p> + +<p>Walkerne, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></p> + +<p>Wallis, Joane, <a href="#Footnote_185-4_68">185 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_187-3_72">187 n.</a></p> + +<p>Walsh, John, trial of, <a href="#Footnote_31-1_56">31 n.</a></p> + +<p>Walter, Aliena, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Walter, Sir John, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></p> + +<p>Walton, Colonel Valentine, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Footnote_237-2_34">237 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wanley, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_308-1_57">308 n.</a></span></p> + +<p>Wapping, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Warboys, trials at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Footnote_109-2_24">109 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229-5_10">229 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Warburton, Sir Peter, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> + +<p>Warburton, Peter, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p> + +<p>Warden of the Cinque Ports, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></p> + +<p><a name="warham" id="warham"></a>Warham, William, Abp. of Canterbury, <a href="#Footnote_58-3_4">58 n.</a></p> + +<p>Warminster, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></p> + +<p>Warwick, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Warwick, Earl of. <i>See</i> <a href="#rich">Rich</a></p> + +<p>Washington, Sir John, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></p> + +<p>"Watching" of witches, practised by Hopkins and Stearne, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gaule's description, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stearne's explanation, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stearne's description, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">probably practised on Elizabeth Style, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practised on a Sussex woman, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="water" id="water"></a>Water, ordeal of, James recommends it, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its use on the Continent, <a href="#Footnote_99-1_6">99 n.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in reign of James, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Footnote_118-1_51">118 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">stopped in Suffolk, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Huntingdonshire, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its use by Hopkins and Stearne, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>-<a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">story that Hopkins was put to it, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use at Faversham, <a href="#Footnote_201-2_108">201 n.</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perkins's opinion, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cotta's, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bernard's, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ady's, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its decline, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">increased use of it as an illegal process, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forbidden in Jane Wenham's case, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Leicester, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Essex, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Holt or Parker, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley and his chaplain, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></span></p> + +<p>Waterhouse, Mother Agnes, trial of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Footnote_40-2_12">40 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></p> + +<p>Waterhouse, Joan, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></p> + +<p>Watson, Jane, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Way, Margaretta, <a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Wayt, Mrs., <a href="#Page_174">174</a></p> + +<p>Webb, Mrs., <a href="#Page_269">269</a></p> + +<p>Webb, Goodwife, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></p> + +<p>Webster, John, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147-4_5">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>-<a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_306-1_51">306 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a></span></p> + +<p>Weech, Christian, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></p> + +<p>Weeke, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></p> + +<p>Weekes, Christiana, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p><i>Weekly Intelligencer</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_213-1_16">213 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p> + +<p>Weight, Mrs., <a href="#Page_174">174</a></p> + +<p>Welfitt, William, cited, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Wellam, Margaret, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Wells, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></p> + +<p>Wells, Archdeacon of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></p> + +<p>Welton, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></p> + +<p>Wenham, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></p> + +<p>Wenham, Jane, trial of, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>-<a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">controversy over, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>-<a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her trial the occasion of Hutchinson's book, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>-<a href="#Page_343">343</a></span></p> + +<p>Wentworth, Lord, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></p> + +<p>West, Andrew, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></p> + +<p>West, Anne, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, and <a href="#Footnote_169-1_12">n.</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></p> + +<p>West, Rebecca, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></p> + +<p>West, William, cited, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>West Ayton, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></p> + +<p>West Drayton, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></p> + +<p>West Riding, Yorkshire, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p> + +<p>Westminster, disputation of, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">16 n.</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cases at, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a></span></p> + +<p>Weston, Father, <a href="#Footnote_74-2_2">74 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></p> + +<p>Westpenner, <a href="#Page_388">388</a></p> + +<p>Westwell, Old Alice of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p><a name="weyer" id="weyer"></a>Weyer (Wier, Wierus), Johann, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Footnote_79-2_14">79 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229-5_10">229 n.</a></p> + +<p>Whitaker, Thomas D., cited, <a href="#Footnote_147-4_5">147 n.</a></p> + +<p>White, Joan, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></p> + +<p>Whitechapel, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>-<a href="#Page_410">410</a></p> + +<p>Whitecrosse Street, <a href="#Page_396">396</a></p> + +<p><a name="whitgift" id="whitgift"></a>Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">88 n.</a></p> + +<p>Whitehall, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p> + +<p>Whitelocke, Bulstrode, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252-2_83">252 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_172-1_17">172 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_179-4_39">179 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_181-1_46">181 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_201-1_107">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_206-1_1">206 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_207-2_3">207 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a></span></p> + +<p>Wickham, William, Bishop of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></p> + +<p>Widdowes, Thomas, cited, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></p> + +<p>Widdrington, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_207-2_3">207 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wier, Wierus. <i>See</i> <a href="#weyer">Weyer</a></p> + +<p>Wigan, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></p> + +<p>Wildridge, T. T., cited, <a href="#Footnote_137-1_24">137 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wilkins, David, cited, <a href="#Footnote_10-1_14">10 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wilkinson, Anne, <a href="#Page_414">414</a></p> + +<p>Williams, Katherine, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Williams, Robert, cited, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Williford, Joan, <a href="#Footnote_201-2_108">201 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Willimot, Joan, <a href="#Footnote_119-1_53">119 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_133-1_18">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a></p> + +<p>Wilson, Alice, <a href="#Footnote_109-2_24">109 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wilson, Arthur, <a href="#Footnote_143-3_45">143 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_172-2_18">172 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a></span></p> + +<p>Wilts, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Footnote_269-1_20">269 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>-<a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>-<a href="#Page_419">419</a></p> + +<p>Wimblington, <a href="#Page_406">406</a></p> + +<p>Winch, Sir Humphrey, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> + +<p>Winchester, Bishop of. <i>See</i> <a href="#bilson">Thomas Bilson</a>, and <a href="#montague">James Montague</a></p> + +<p>Winchester Park, <a href="#Footnote_257-4_7">257 n.</a></p> + +<p>Windebank, Secretary, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></p> + +<p>Windsor, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></p> + +<p>Windsor, Dean of, and Abingdon trials, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wingerworth, <a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p>Witchall, Judith, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Witchfinder, Darrel as a, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>-<a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hopkins as a, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>-<a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a Scotch pricker as a, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ann Armstrong as a, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>-<a href="#Page_282">282</a></span></p> + +<p>Wolsey, Thomas, Abp. of York, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Footnote_58-3_4">59 n.</a></p> + +<p>Women, proportion of to men in indictments for witchcraft, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of wives to spinsters and to widows, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_115">115</a></span></p> + +<p>Wood, Anthony à, cited, <a href="#Footnote_295-1_25">295 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></p> + +<p>Wood, Joan, <a href="#Page_386">386</a></p> + +<p>Woodbridge, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Woodbury, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>Woodhouse, Doctor, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></p> + +<p>Woodstock, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></p> + +<p>Wooler, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></p> + +<p>Worcester, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a></p> + +<p>Worcester, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></p> + +<p>Worcestershire, <a href="#Footnote_208-4_8">208 n.</a></p> + +<p>Worthington, John, cited, <a href="#Footnote_180-5_45">180 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wright, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Footnote_78-1_10">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a></p> + +<p>Wright, Grace, <a href="#Page_405">405</a></p> + +<p>Wright, Katherine, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></p> + +<p>Wright, Thomas, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Footnote_188-3_76">188 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <a href="#Footnote_2-1_1">2 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_6-2_6">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_7-1_7">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_9-1_11">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19-1_26">19 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_25-2_40">25 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_95-1_1">95 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_100-2_8">100 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147-4_5">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></span></p> + +<p>Wrottesley, Lord, <a href="#Footnote_162-2_34">162 n.</a></p> + +<p>Wylde, John, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></p> + +<p>Wynnick, John, <a href="#Footnote_185-4_68">185 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_187-3_72">187 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p><a name="yarmouth" id="yarmouth"></a>Yarmouth, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#great">Yarmouth, Great</a></span></p> + +<p>Yarmouth, Great, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a></p> + +<p>York, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229-5_10">229 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a></p> + +<p>York, Archbishop of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> + +<p>York Castle, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></p> + +<p><i>York Depositions</i>, <a href="#Footnote_218-4_27">218 n.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cited, <i>passim</i> thereafter</span></p> + +<p>Yorkshire, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>-<a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>-<a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>-<a href="#Page_416">416</a></p> + +<p><i>Yorkshire Notes and Queries</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_257-4_7">257 n.</a></p> + +<p>Young, Margareta, <a href="#Page_418">418</a></p> + +<p>Young, Ruth, <a href="#Page_418">418</a><br /><br /></p> + + +<p>Zurich, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87-2_36">87 n.</a></p> + +<p><i>Zurich Letters</i>, cited, <a href="#Footnote_16-1_22">17 n.</a></p> + +<p>Zweibrücken, <a href="#Footnote_15-1_21">15 n.</a></p> + +<div class="microspace"> </div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Witchcraft in England +from 1558 to 1718, by Wallace Notestein + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCHCRAFT *** + +***** This file should be named 31511-h.htm or 31511-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/1/31511/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Meredith Bach, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at 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