Discovery of Witches Part 2

_Johannes Hyphantes sive Webster, In villa Spinosa supermontana, in Parochia silvae cuculatae, in agro Eboracensi, natus 1610 Feb. 3, Ergastulum animae deposuit 1682, Junii 18, Annoq. aetatis suae 72 currente._

_Sicq. peroravit moriens mundo huic valedicens, Aurea pax vivis, requies aeterna sepultis._"]

But it is necessary to proceed from the authors on witchcraft to that extraordinary case which forms the subject of the present republication, and which first gave to Pendle its t.i.tle to be considered as the Hartz Forest of England.

The Forest of Pendle is a portion of the greater one of Blackburns.h.i.+re, and is so called from the celebrated mountain of that name, over the declivity of which it extends and stretches in a long but interrupted descent of five miles, to the water of Pendle, a barren and dreary tract. Dr. Whitaker observes of this and the neighbouring forests, and the remark even yet holds good, "that they still bear the marks of original barrenness, and recent cultivation; that they are still distinguished from the ancient freehold tracts around them, by want of old houses, old woods, high fences; (for these were forbidden by the forest laws;) by peculiarities of dialect and manners in their inhabitants; and lastly, by a general air of poverty which all the opulence of manufactures cannot remove." He considers that "at an uncertain period during the occupancy of the Lacies, the first principle of population" (in these forests) commenced; it was found that these wilds, bleak and barren as they were, might be occupied to some advantage in breeding young and depasturing lean "cattle, which were afterwards fattened in the lower domains.

_Vaccaries_, or great upland pastures, were laid out for this purpose; _booths_ or mansions erected upon them for the residence of herdsmen; and at the same time that herds of deer were permitted to range at large as heretofore, _lawnds_, by which are meant parks within a forest, were inclosed, in order to chase them with greater facility, or, by confinement, to produce fatter venison. Of these lawnds Pendle had new and old lawnd, with the contiguous park of Ightenhill."

In the early part of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of this district must have been, with few exceptions, a wretchedly poor and uncultivated race, having little communication with the occupants of the more fertile regions around them, and in whose minds superst.i.tion, even yet unextinguished, must have had absolute and uncontrollable domination. Under the disenchanting influence of steam, manufactures, and projected rail-roads, still much of the old character of its population remains. _Hodie manent vestigia ruris._ The "parting genius" of superst.i.tion still clings to the h.o.a.ry hill tops and rugged slopes and mossy water sides, along which the old forest stretched its length, and the voices of ancestral tradition are still heard to speak from the depth of its quiet hollows, and along the course of its gurgling streams. He who visits Pendle[31] will yet find that charms are generally resorted to amongst the lower cla.s.ses; that there are hares which, in their persuasion, never can be caught, and which survive only to baffle and confound the huntsman; that each small hamlet has its peculiar and gifted personage, whom it is dangerous to offend; that the wise man and wise woman (the white witches of our ancestors) still continue their investigations of truth, undisturbed by the rural police or the progress of the schoolmaster; that each locality has its haunted house; that apparitions still walk their ghostly rounds--and little would his reputation for piety avail that clergyman in the eyes of his paris.h.i.+oners who should refuse to lay those "extravagant and erring spirits," when requested, by those due liturgic ceremonies which the orthodoxy of tradition requires.

[Footnote 31: It was my good fortune to visit this wizard-haunted spot within the last few weeks, in company with the able and zealous Archdeacon[A] within whose ecclesiastical cure it is comprized, and to whose singularly accurate knowledge of this district, and courteous communication of much valuable information regarding it, I hold myself greatly indebted. Following, with unequal steps, such a guide, accompanied, likewise, by an excellent Canon of the Church[B] with all the "armamentaria coeli" at command against the powers of darkness, and a lay auxiliary[C], whose friendly converse would make the roughest journey appear smooth, I need scarcely say, I pa.s.sed through

"The forest wyde, Whose hideous horror and sad trembling sownd Full griesly seem'd,"

unscathed by the old lords of the soil, and needed not Mengus's Fuga, Fustis et Flagellum Daemonum, as a triple coat of mail.]

[Footnote A: The Venerable the Archdeacon of Manchester, the Rev. John Rushton, who is also the Inc.u.mbent of New Church, in Pendle.]

[Footnote B: The Rev. Canon Parkinson.]

[Footnote C: J.B. w.a.n.klyn, Esq.]

In the early part of the reign of James the first, and at the period when his execrable statute against witchcraft might have been sharpening its appet.i.te by a temporary fast for the full meal of blood by which it was eventually glutted,--for as yet it could count no recorded victims,--two wretched old women with their families resided in the Forest of Pendle. Their names were Elizabeth Southernes and Ann Whittle, better known, perhaps, in the chronicles of witchcraft, by the appellations of Old Demdike and Old Chattox.[32] Both had attained, or had reached the verge of the advanced age of eighty, were evidently in a state of extreme poverty, subsisting with their families by occasional employment, by mendicancy, but princ.i.p.ally, perhaps, by the a.s.sumption of that unlawful power, which commerce with spirits of evil was supposed to procure, and of which their s.e.x, life, appearance, and peculiarities, might seem to the prejudiced neighbourhood in the Forest to render them not unsuitable depositaries. In both, perhaps, some vindictive wish, which appeared to have been gratified nearly as soon as uttered, or some one of those curious coincidences which no individual's life is without, led to an impression which time, habit, and general recognition would gradually deepen into full conviction, that each really possessed the powers which witchcraft was believed to confer. Whether it be with witches as it is said to be with a much maligned branch of a certain profession, that it needs two of its members in a district to make its exercise profitable, it is not for me to say; but it is seldom found that compet.i.tion is accompanied by any very amicable feeling in the compet.i.tors, or by a disposition to underrate the value of the merchandize which each has to offer for sale. Accordingly, great was the rivalry, constant the feuds, and unintermitting the respective criminations of the Erictho and Canidia of Pendle,[33] who had opened shops for the vending of similar contraband commodities, and were called upon to decry each other's stock, as well as to magnify their own. Each "gave her little senate laws," and had her own party (or tail, according to modern phraseology) in the Forest. Some looked up to and patronized one, and some the other. If old Demdike could boast that she had Tibb as a familiar, old Chattox was not without her Fancy. If the former had skill in waxen images, the latter could dig up the scalps of the dead, and make their teeth serviceable to her unhallowed purposes. In the anxiety which each felt to outvie the other, and to secure the greater share of the general custom of a not very extended or very lucrative market, each would wish to be represented as more death-dealing, destructive, and powerful than her neighbour; and she who could number up the most goodly a.s.sortment of damage done to man and beast, whether real or not was quite immaterial, as long as the draught was spiced and flavoured to suit the general taste, stood the best chance of obtaining a monopoly. It is a curious fact, that the son-in-law of one of these two individuals, and whose wife was herself executed as a witch, paid to the other a yearly rent,[34] on an express covenant that she should exempt him from her charms and witchcrafts. Where the possession of a commission from the powers of darkness was thus eagerly and ostentatiously paraded, every death, the cause of which was not perfectly obvious, whether it ended in a sudden termination or a slow and gradual decline, would be placed to the general account of one of the two (to use Master Potts's description,) "agents for the devil in those parts," as the party responsible for these unclaimed dividends of mortality. Did a cow go mad, or was a horse unaccountably afflicted with the staggers, the same solution was always at hand to clear negligence and save the trouble of inquiry; and so far from modestly disclaiming these atrocities, the only struggle on the parts of Mothers Demdike and Chattox would be which should first appropriate them. And in all this it must not be forgotten that their own credulity was at least as great as the credulity of their neighbours, and that each had the power in question was so much an admitted point, that she had long ceased, in all probability, to entertain any doubts on the subject. With this general conviction on one hand, and a sincere persuasion on the other, it would be surprising if, in the course of a few years, the scandalous chronicle of Pendle had not acc.u.mulated a _corpus delicti_ against them, which only required that "_one of his Majesties Justices in these parts, a very religious honest gentleman, painful in the service of his country_," should work the materials into shape, and make "the gruel thick and slab."

[Footnote 32: The Archdeacon of Manchester suggests that this is merely a corruption of Chadwick or Chadwicks, and not, as explained in the Note, p. 19, from her chattering as she went along.]

[Footnote 33: These bickerings were no doubt exasperated by the robbery committed upon old Demdike and Alizon Device, which is detailed in the examinations, some of the _opima spolia_ abstracted on which occasion she detected on the person of old Chattox's daughter.]

[Footnote 34: Of an aghendole of meal. Since writing the Note, p. 23, I am indebted to Miss Clegg, of Hallfoot, near c.l.i.theroe, for information as to the exact quant.i.ty contained in an aghendole, which is eight pounds. This measure, she informs me, is still in use in Little Harwood, in the district of Pendle. The Archdeacon of Manchester considers that an aghendole, or more properly, as generally p.r.o.nounced, a nackendole, is a kneading-dole, the quant.i.ty of meal, &c. usually taken for kneading at one time. There can be no doubt that this is the correct derivation.]

Such a man was soon found in the representative of the old family of the Nowels of Read, who, desirous of signalizing himself as an active and stirring justice, took up the case of these self-accusing culprits, for both made confessions when examined before him, with a vigour worthy of a better cause. On the 2nd April, 1612, he committed old Demdike, old Chattox, Alizon Device, and Anne Redfern to Lancaster, to take their trial at the next a.s.sizes for various murders and witchcrafts. "Here," says the faithful chronicler, Master Potts, "they had not stayed a weeke, when their children and friendes being abroad at libertie, laboured a speciall meeting at Malking Tower[35]

in the Forrest of Pendle, vpon Good-fryday, within a weeke after they were committed, of all the most dangerous, wicked, and d.a.m.nable witches in the county farre and neere. Vpon Good-fryday they met, according to solemne appoyntment, solemnized this great festiuall day according to their former order, with great cheare, merry company, and much conference. In the end, in this great a.s.semblie it was decreed that M. Covell, [he was the gaoler of Lancaster Castle,] by reason of his Office, shall be slaine before the next a.s.sises, the Castle at Lancaster to be blown up," &c., &c. This witches' convention, so historically famous, we unquestionably owe to the "painful justice"

whose scent after witches and plots ent.i.tled him to a promotion which he did not obtain. An overt act so alarming and so indisputable, at once threw the country, far and near, into the greatest ferment--_furiis surrexit Etruria justis_--while it supplied an admirable _locus in quo_ for tracing those whose retiring habits had prevented their propensities to witchcraft from being generally known to their intimate friends and connexions. The witness by whose evidence this legend was princ.i.p.ally supported, was Jennet Device, a child about nine years old, and grand-daughter of old Demdike. A more dangerous tool in the hands of an unscrupulous evidence-compeller, being at once intelligent, cunning and pliant, than the child proved herself, it would not have been easy to have discovered. A foundation being now laid capable of embracing any body of confederates, the indefatigable justice proceeded in his inquiries, and in the end, Elizabeth Device the daughter of old Demdike, James Device her son, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulc.o.c.k, Jane Bulc.o.c.k, with some others, were committed for trial at Lancaster. The very curious report of that trial is contained in the work now republished, which was compiled under the superintendence of the judges who presided, by Master Thomas Potts, clerk in court, and present at the trial. His report, notwithstanding its prolixity and its many repet.i.tions, it has been thought advisable to publish entire, and the reprint which follows is as near a fac-simile as possible of the original tract.

[Footnote 35: Baines confounds Malking-Tower with h.o.a.r-stones, a place rendered famous by the second case of pretended witchcraft in 1633, but at some distance from the first-named spot, the residence of Mother Demdike, which lies in the towns.h.i.+p of Barrowford. The witch's mansion--

"Where that same wicked wight Her dwelling had-- Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave That still for carrion carcases doth crave, On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owle, Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, And all about it wandering ghosts did wail and howle"--

is now, alas! no more. It stood in a field a little elevated, on a brow above the building at present called Malking-Tower. The site of the house or cottage is still distinctly traceable, and fragments of the plaster are yet to be found imbedded in the boundary wall of the field. The old road to Gisburne ran almost close to it. It commanded a most extensive prospect in front, in the direction of Alkincoates, Colne, and the Yorks.h.i.+re moors; while in another direction the vast range of Pendle, nearly intercepted, gloomed in sullen majesty. At the period when Mother Demdike was in being, Malking-Tower would be at some distance from any other habitation; its occupier, as the vulgar would opine--

"So choosing solitarie to abide Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deedes And h.e.l.lish arts from people she might hide, And hurt far off unknown whomever she envide."]

It is rather strange that Dr. Whitaker, to whom local superst.i.tions were always matters of the strongest interest, and welcome as manna to the sojourners in the wilderness,[36] should have been ignorant, not merely of Master Potts's discovery, but even of the fact of this trial of the witches in 1612. It is equally singular that Sir Walter Scott should have forgotten, when writing his letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, that he had republished this tract, somewhat inaccurately, but with rather a long introduction and notes, in the third volume of his edition of the Somers Tracts, which appeared in 1810. He mentions Potts's _Discoverie_, in the amusing but very inaccurate and imperfect historical sketch referred to,[37] as a curious and rare book, which he had then for the first time obtained a sight of. What could have been his meaning in referring his readers, for an account of Mother Demdike and a description of Malking Tower, to "Mr. Roby's Antiquities of Lancaster," that apocryphal historian having given no such account or description, and having published no such work, it is rather difficult to conjecture.

[Footnote 36: In a scarce little book, "The Triumph of Sovereign Grace, or a Brand plucked out of the Fire, by David Crosly, Minister, Manchester," 1743, 12mo., which I owe to the kindness of the very able historian of Ches.h.i.+re, George Ormerod, Esq., Dr. Whitaker, to whom the volume formerly belonged, has been at the pains of chronicling the superst.i.tions connected with a family, ranking amongst the more opulent yeomen of Cliviger, of the name of Briercliffe, on the execution of one of whom for murder the tract was published. The Briercliffe's, from the curious anecdotes which the Doctor gives with great unction, appear to have been one of those gloomy and fated races, dogged by some una.s.suageable Nemesis, in which crime and horror are transmitted from generation to generation with as much certainty as the family features and name.]

[Footnote 37: We yet want a full, elaborate, and satisfactory history of witchcraft. Hutchinson's is the only account we have which enters at all at length into the detail of the various cases; but his materials were generally collected from common sources, and he confines himself princ.i.p.ally to English cases. The European history of witchcraft embraces so wide a field, and requires for its just completion a research so various, that there is little probability, I fear, of this _desideratum_ being speedily supplied.]

With all his habitual tautology and grave absurdity, Master Potts is, nevertheless, a faithful and accurate chronicler, and we owe his memory somewhat for furnis.h.i.+ng us with so elaborate a report of what took place on this trial, and giving us, "in their own country terms,"

the examinations of the witnesses, which contain much which throws light on the manners and language of the times, and nearly all that is necessary to enable us to form a judgment on the proceedings. It will be observed that he follows with great exactness the course pursued in court, in opening the case and recapitulating the evidence separately against each prisoner, so as most graphically to place before us the whole scene as it occurred. The part in which he is felt to be most deficient, is in the want of some further account of the prisoners convicted, from the trial up to the time of their execution. To Master Potts, a man of legal forms and ceremonies, the entire interest in the case seems to have come in and gone out with the judge's trumpets.

As most of the points in the trial which appeared to require observation, have been adverted to in the notes which follow the reprint, it is not considered necessary to enter into any a.n.a.lysis or review of the evidence adduced at the trial, which presents such a miserable mockery of justice. Mother Demdike, it will be seen, died in prison before the trial came on. Of the Pendle witches four, namely Old Chattox, Elizabeth Device, James Device, and Alizon Device, had all made confessions, and had little chance, therefore, of escaping condemnation. They were all found guilty; and with them were convicted, Anne Redfern, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulc.o.c.k, and Jane Bulc.o.c.k, who were all of Pendle or its neighbourhood, and who maintained their innocence and refused to make any confession. They were executed, along with the first-mentioned four and Isabel Robey, who was of Windle, in the parish of Prescot, and had been found guilty of similar practises, the day after the trial, viz. on the 18th of August, 1612, "at the common place of execution near to Lancaster."

The main interest in reviewing this miserable band of victims will be felt to centre in Alice Nutter.[38] Wealthy, well conducted, well connected, and placed probably on an equality with most of the neighbouring families and the magistrate before whom she was brought, and by whom she was committed, she deserves to be distinguished from the companions with whom she suffered, and to attract an attention which has never yet been directed towards her.[39] That Jennet Device, on whose evidence she was convicted, was instructed to accuse her by her own nearest relatives, to whom "superfluous lagged the veteran on the stage," and that the magistrate, Roger Nowell, entered actively as a confederate into the conspiracy from a grudge entertained against her on account of a long disputed boundary, are allegations which tradition has preserved, but the truth or falsehood of which, at this distance of time, it is scarcely possible satisfactorily to examine.

With such a witness, however, as Jennet Device, and such an admirable engine as the meeting at Malking-Tower, the guests at which she could multiply _ad libitum_, doling out the _plaat_, as t.i.tus Oates would call it, by such instalments, and in such fragmentary portions, as would conduce to an easy digestion of the whole, the wonder seems not to be, that one unfortunate victim of a higher cla.s.s should have perished in the meshes of artful and complicated villainy, but that its ramifications were not more extensive, and still more fatal and destructive. From one so capable of taking a hint as the little precocious prodigy of wickedness, in whose examination, Potts tells us, "_Mr. Nowell took such great paines_," a very summary deliverance might be expected from troublesome neighbours, or still more troublesome relatives; and if, by a leading question, she could only be induced to marshal them in their allotted places at the witches'

imaginary banquet, there was little doubt of their taking their station at a place of meeting where the sad realities of life were only to be encountered, "the common place of execution near to Lancaster."

[Footnote 38: The explorer of Pendle will find the mansion of Alice Nutter, Rough Lee, still standing. It is impossible to look at it, recollecting the circ.u.mstances of her case, without being strongly interested. It is a very substantial, and rather a fine specimen of the houses of the inferior gentry in the time of James the first, and is now divided into cottages. On one of the side walls is an inscription, almost entirely obliterated, which contained the date of the building and the initials of the name of its first owner. At a little distance from Rough Lee, pursuing the course of the stream, he will find the foundations of an ancient mill, and the millstones still unremoved, though the building itself has been pulled down long ago.

This was, doubtless, the mill of Richard Baldwin, the miller, who, as stated in Old Demdike's confession, ejected her and Alizon Device her daughter, from his land so contumeliously; immediately after which her "Spirit or divell called Tibb appeared, and sayd Revenge thee of him."

Greenhead, the residence of Robert Nutter, one of the reputed victims of the prisoners tried on this occasion, is at some distance from Rough Lee, and is yet in good preservation, and occupied as a farmhouse.]

[Footnote 39: The instances are very few in England in which the statute of James the first was brought to bear against any but the lowest cla.s.ses of the people. Indeed, there are not many attempts reported to attack the rich and powerful with weapons derived from its provisions. One of such attempts, which did not, like that against Alice Nutter, prove successful, is narrated in a curious and scarce pamphlet, which I have now before me, with this t.i.tle--"Wonderful 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, and how miraculously it pleased G.o.d to strengthen them and to deliver them; as also the prosecution of the say'd 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 24th day of April, 1650. London, printed by T.H., and are to be sold by Richard Harper at his Shop in Smithfield. 1650," 4to. This was evidently a diabolical plot, in which these children were made the puppets, and which was got up to accomplish the destruction of a person of condition, Mrs. Dorothy Swinnow, the wife of Colonel Swinnow, of Chatton, in Northumberland, and from which she had great difficulty in escaping.]

The trial of the Samlesbury witches, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, and Jane Southworth, forms a curious episode in Potts's _Discoverie_.

A Priest or Jesuit, of the name of Thomson, _alias_ Southworth, had tutored the princ.i.p.al evidence, Grace Sowerbuts, a girl of the age of fourteen, but who had not the same instinctive genius for perjury as Jennet Device, to accuse the three persons above mentioned of having bewitched her; "so that," as the indictment runs, "by means thereof her body wasted and consumed." "The chief object," says Sir Walter Scott, "in this imposture, was doubtless the advantage and promotion of the Catholic cause, as the patient would have been in due time exorcised and the fiend dispossessed, by the same priest who had taught her to counterfeit the fits. Revenge against the women, who had become proselytes to the Church of England, was probably an additional motive." But the imposture broke down, from the inability of the princ.i.p.al witness to support the scheme of deception. Unsuccessful, however, as it proved, the time was well chosen, the groundwork excellently laid, the evidence industriously got up, and it must ever deserve a prominent place in the history--a history, how delightful when it shall be written in the spirit of philosophy and with due application of research--of human fraud and imposture.

We can only speculate, of course, on such an occasion, but perhaps no trial is recorded as having taken place, with the results of which every body, the parties convicted only excepted, was, in all probability, better pleased or satisfied, than at this witch trial at Lancaster in 1612. The mob would be delighted with a pageant, always acceptable, in the execution of ten witches; and still more, that one of them was of a rank superior to their own;--the judge had no doubt, in his opinion, avoided each horn of the dilemma--the abomination mentioned in Scripture--punis.h.i.+ng the innocent or letting the guilty go free--by tracking guilt with well breathed sagacity, and unravelling imposture with unerring skill;--a Jesuit had been unkennelled, a spectacle as gratifying to a serious Protestant in those days, as running down a fox to a thorough sportsman;--a plot had been discovered which might have made Lancaster Castle "to topple on its warders" and "slope its head to its foundations," and Master Cowell, who had held so many inquests, to vanish without leaving anything in his own person whereon an inquest could be holden;--a pestilent nest of incorrigible witches had been dug out and rooted up, and Pendle Hill placed under sanatory regulations;--and last, and not least, as affording matter of pride and exultation to every loyal subject, a commentary had at last been collected for two texts, which had long called for some such support without finding it, King James's _Demonology_, and his statute against witchcraft. When the _Discoverie_ of Master Potts, with its rich treasury of ill.u.s.trative evidence, came to hand, would not the monarch be the happiest man in his dominions!

Twenty years after the publication of the tract now reprinted, Pendle Forest again became the scene of pretended witchcrafts; and from various circ.u.mstances, the trial which took place then (in 1633) has acquired even greater notoriety than the one which preceded it, though no Master Potts could be found to transmit a report of the proceedings in the second case, a deficiency which is greatly to be lamented. The particulars are substantially comprised in the following examination, which is given from the copy in Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 213, which, on comparison, is unquestionably more accurate than the other two versions, in Webster, p. 347, and Baines's _Lancas.h.i.+re_, vol. i. p.

604:[40]--

[Footnote 40: The copy in Baines is from the Harl. MSS., cod. 6854, fo. 26 _b_, and though inserted in his history as more correct than that in Whitaker's Whalley, is so disfigured by errors, particularly in the names of persons and places, as to be utterly unintelligible.

From what source Whitaker derived his transcript does not appear; for the confession of Margaret Johnson he cites Dodsworth MSS. in Bodleian Lib., vol. 61, p. 47.]

"THE EXAMINATION OF EDMUND ROBINSON,

"Son of _Edm. Robinson_, of _Pendle_ forest, mason,[41] taken at _Padiham_ before _Richard Shuttleworth_[42] and _John Starkie_,[43]

Esqs. two of his majesty's justices of the peace, within the county of _Lancaster_, 10th of February, A.D. 1633.

[Footnote 41: "The informer was one Edmund Robinson (yet living at the writing hereof, and commonly known by the name of Ned of Roughs) whose Father was by trade a Waller, and but a poor Man, and they finding that they were believed and had incouragement by the adjoyning Magistrates, and the persons being committed to prison or bound over to the next a.s.sizes, the boy, his Father and some others besides did make a practice to go from Church to Church that the Boy might reveal and discover Witches, pretending that there was a great number at the pretended meeting whose faces he could know, and by that means they got a good living, that in a short s.p.a.ce the Father bought a Cow or two, when he had none before. And it came to pa.s.s that this said Boy was brought into the Church of Kildwick a large parish Church, where I (being then Curate there) was preaching in the afternoon, and was set upon a stall (he being but about ten or eleven years old) to look about him, which moved some little disturbance in the Congregation for a while. And after prayers I inquiring what the matter was, the people told me that it was the Boy that discovered Witches, upon which I went to the house where he was to stay all night, where I found him, and two very unlikely persons that did conduct him, and manage the business; I desired to have some discourse with the Boy in private, but that they utterly refused; then in the presence of a great many people, I took the Boy near me, and said: Good Boy tell me truly, and in earnest, did thou see and hear such strange things of the meeting of Witches, as is reported by many that thou dost relate, or did not some person teach thee to say such things of thy self? But the two men not giving the Boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace, and they did never ask him such a question, to whom I replied, the persons accused had therefore the more wrong."--Webster's _Displaying of Witchcraft_, p. 276.]

[Footnote 42: This was Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorp, Esq., who married the daughter and heiress of R. Fleetwood, Esq., of Barton, and died June 1669, aged 82.]

[Footnote 43: John Starkie, Esq., of the family of Starkie of Huntroyd, the same probably who was sheriff of Lancas.h.i.+re 9 Charles I, and one of the seven demoniacs at Cleworth in the year 1595, on whose evidence Hartley was hanged for witchcraft. Having commenced so early, he must by this time have qualified himself, if he only improved the advantages of his Cleworth education, to take the chair and proceed as professor, in all matters appertaining to witchcraft.]

"Who informeth upon oath, (beeinge examined concerninge the greate meetings of the witches) and saith, that upon All-saints day last past, hee, this informer, beeinge with one _Henry Parker_, a neare doore neighbor to him in _Wheatley-lane_,[44] desyred the said _Parker_ to give him leave to get some bulloes,[45] which hee did. In which tyme of gettinge bulloes, hee sawe two greyhounds, viz. a blacke and a browne one, came runninge over the next field towards him, he verily thinkinge the one of them to bee Mr. _Nutters_,[46] and the other to bee Mr. _Robinsons_,[47] the said Mr. _Nutter_ and Mr.

_Robinson_ havinge then such like. And the said greyhounds came to him and fawned on him, they havinge about theire necks either of them a coller, and to either of which collers was tyed a stringe, which collers as this informer affirmeth did s.h.i.+ne like gould, and hee thinkinge that some either of Mr. _Nutter's_ or Mr. _Robinson's_ family should have followed them: but seeinge noe body to followe them, he tooke the said greyhounds thinkinge to hunt with them, and presently a hare did rise very neare before him, at the sight whereof he cryed, loo, loo, but the dogges would not run. Whereupon beeinge very angry, he tooke them, and with the strings that were at theire collers tyed either of them to a little bush on the next hedge, and with a rod that hee had in his hand, hee bett them. And in stede of the blacke greyhound, one _d.i.c.konson_ wife stoode up (a neighb^r.) whom this informer knoweth, and in steade of the browne greyhound a little boy whom this informer knoweth not. At which sight this informer beeinge affraid indevoured to run away: but beeinge stayed by the woman, viz. by _d.i.c.konson's_ wife, shee put her hand into her pocket, and pulled out a peace of silver much like to a faire s.h.i.+llinge, and offered to give him to hould his tongue, and not to tell, whiche hee refused, sayinge, nay thou art a witch; Whereupon shee put her hand into her pocket againe, and pulled out a stringe like unto a bridle[48] 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. Then immediately the said _d.i.c.konson_ wife tooke this informer before her upon the said horse, and carried him to a new house called _h.o.a.restones_,[49] beinge about a quarter of a mile off, whither, when they were comme, there were divers persons about the doore, and hee sawe divers others cominge rideinge upon horses of severall colours towards the said house, which tyed theire horses to a hedge neare to the sed house; and which persons went into the sed house, to the number of threescore or thereabouts, as this informer thinketh, where they had a fyer and meate roastinge, and some other meate stirringe in the house, whereof a yonge woman whom hee this informer knoweth not, gave him flesh and breade upon a trencher, and drinke in a gla.s.se, which, after the first taste, hee refused, and would have noe more, and said it was nought.

And presently after, seeinge diverse of the company goinge to a barn neare adioyneinge,[50] hee followed after, and there he sawe sixe of them kneelinge, and pullinge at sixe severall roapes which were fastened or tyed to ye toppe of the house; at or with which pullinge came then in this informers sight flesh smoakeinge, b.u.t.ter in lumps, and milke as it were syleinge[51] from the said roapes, all which fell into basons whiche were placed under the saide roapes. And after that these sixe had done, there came other sixe which did likewise, and duringe all the tyme of theire so pullinge, they made such foule faces that feared[52] this informer, soe as hee was glad to steale out and run home, whom, when they wanted, some of theire company came runninge after him neare to a place in a high way, called Boggard-hole,[53]

where this informer met two hors.e.m.e.n, at the sight whereof the sed persons left followinge him, and the foremost of which persons yt followed him, hee knoweth to bee one _Loynd_ wife, which said wife, together with one _d.i.c.konson_ wife, and one _Jenet Davies_[54] he hath seene at severall tymes in a croft or close adioninge to his fathers house, whiche put him in a greate feare. And further, this informer saith, upon Thursday after New Yeares day last past, he sawe the sed _Loynd_ wife sittinge upon a crosse peece of wood, beeinge within the chimney of his father's dwellinge house, and hee callinge to her, said, come downe thou _Loynd_ wife, and immediately the sed _Loynd_ wife went up out of his sight. And further, this informer saith, yt after hee was comme from ye company aforesed to his father's house, beeinge towards eveninge, his father bad him goe fetch home two kyne to seale,[55] and in the way, in a field called the Ollers, hee chanced to hap upon a boy, who began to quarrell with him, and they fought soe together till this informer had his eares made very b.l.o.o.d.y by fightinge, and lookinge downe, hee sawe the boy had a cloven foote, at which sight hee was affraid, and ran away from him to seeke the kyne. And in the way hee sawe a light like a lanthorne, towards which he made hast, supposinge it to bee carried by some of Mr. _Robinson's_ people: But when hee came to the place, hee onley found a woman standinge on a bridge, whom, when hee sawe her, he knewe to bee _Loynd_ wife, and knowinge her, he turned backe againe, and immediatly hee met with ye aforesed boy, from whom he offered to run, which boy gave him a blow on the back which caus'd him to cry. And hee farther saith, yt when hee was in the barne, he sawe three women take three pictures from off the beame, in the which pictures many thornes, or such like things sticked, and yt _Loynd_ wife tooke one of the said pictures downe, but thother two women yt tooke thother two pictures downe hee knoweth not.[56] And beeinge further asked, what persons were at ye meeteinge aforesed, hee nominated these persons hereafter mentioned, viz. _d.i.c.konson_ wife, _Henry Priestley_ wife and her sone, _Alice Hargreaves_ widdowe, _Jennet Davies_, _Wm. Davies_, uxor.

_Hen. Jacks_ and her sone _John_, _James Hargreaves_ of _Marsden_, _Miles_ wife of _d.i.c.ks_, _James_ wife, _Saunders_ sicut credit, _Lawrence_ wife of _Saunders_, _Loynd_ wife, _Buys_ wife of _Barrowford_, one _Holgate_ and his wife sicut credit, _Little Robin_ wife of _Leonard's_, of the _West Cloase_.[57]

[Footnote 44: Wheatley-lane is still a place of note in Pendle.]

[Footnote 45: Wild plums.]

[Footnote 46: It would seem as if a case of witchcraft in Pendle, without a Nutter in some way connected with it, could not occur.]