Discovery of Witches Part 29

R 1 _b_. "_The names of the Witches at the Great a.s.sembly and Feast at Malking-Tower, viz. vpon Good-Friday last, 1612._"] In this list of fourteen individuals, Master Potts has omitted "the painful steward so careful to provide mutton," James Device, who made up the number to fifteen. Of these persons seven were not indicted: Jennet Hargraves, the wife of Hugh Hargraves, of Barley under Pendle; Elizabeth Hargraves, the wife of Christopher Hargraves; Christopher Howgate, the son of Old Demdike; Christopher Hargraves, who is described as of Thurniholme, or Thornholme, and as Christopher o' Jacks, and was husband of Elizabeth Hargraves; Grace Hay, of Padiham; Anne Crunkshey, of Marchden, or more properly, Cronkshaw of Marsden; and Elizabeth Howgate, the wife of Christopher Howgate. The two Howgates were, it may be, the "one Holgate and his wife," mentioned in Robinson's deposition in 1633. Alice Graie, or Gray, included in the list, was indicted, though no copy of the indictment is afforded by Potts, and, singular as it may seem, acquitted. Richard Miles' wife, of the Rough Lee, stated to have been present in some of the depositions, (G 3 _b_,) was, beyond doubt, Alice Nutter, so called as the wife of Richard and mother of Miles Nutter.

It may afford matter for speculation, whether any real meeting took place of any of the persons above enumerated, which gave occasion for the monstrous versions of the witnesses at this trial. It is far from unlikely, that on the apprehension and commitment of Old Demdike, Old Chattox, Alizon Device, and Anne Redfern to Lancaster, a meeting would take place of their near relations, and others who might attend from curiosity, or from its being rumoured that they were themselves implicated by the confessions of those apprehended, and who by such attendance sealed their dooms. In all similar fabrications there is generally some slight foundation of fact, some scintilla of homely truth, from which, like the inverted apex of a pyramid, the disproportioned fabric expands. It is possible that, from the simple occurrence of an unusual attendance at Malking Tower on Good Friday, not unnatural under the circ.u.mstances, some of the witnesses, ignorant and easily persuaded, might be afterwards led to believe in the existence of those monstrous superadditions with which the convention was afterwards clothed. However this may be, there must have been at hand for working up the materials into a plausible form, some drill sergeant of evidence behind the curtain, who had his own interest to serve or revenge to gratify. The two particulars in the narrative that one feels least disposed to question, are, that James Device stole a wether from John Robinson of Barley, to provide a family dinner on Good Friday, and that when the meat was roasted John Bulc.o.c.k performed the humble, but very necessary, duty of turning the spit.

R 3 _a_. "_My Lord Gerrard._"] Thomas Gerard, son and heir of Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Robes 23d Elizabeth, was raised to the peerage by the t.i.tle of Lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, in Staffords.h.i.+re, 1603. He died 1618.

S _a_. "_Kniues, Elsons, and Sickles._" In the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, p. 138, to Elsyn (elsyng^k) Sibula, Mr. Way appends this note: "This word occurs in the Gloss on Gautier de Bibelesworth, Arund. MS. 220, where a buckled girdle is described:--

"Een isy doyt le hardiloun (e tunnge) Pa.s.ser par tru de subiloun (a bore of an alsene.)

"An elsyne,--acus, subula. Cath. Ang. Sibula, an elsyn, an alle or a bodkyn. ORTUS. In the inventory of the goods of a merchant at Newcastle, A.D. 1571, occur, 'vj. doss' elsen heftes, 12_d_; 1 clowte and 1/2 a C elsen blades, viij_s_. viij_d_; xiij. clowtes of talier, needles, &c.' Wills and Inventories published by the Surtees Society, l. 361. The term is derived from the French _alene_; elson for cordwayners, alesne. Palsg. In Yorks.h.i.+re and some other parts of England an awl is still called an elsen."

S _b_. "_Which the said Alizon confessing._"] In the case of this paralytic pedlar, John Law, his mishap could scarcely be called such, as it would for the remainder of his life, be an all-sufficient stock-in-trade for him, and popular wonder and sympathy, without the judge's interposition, would provide for his relief and maintenance.

The near apparent connection and correspondence of the _d.a.m.num minatum_ and _d.a.m.num secutum_, in this instance, imposed upon this unfortunate woman, as it had done upon many others, and gave to her confession an earnestness which would appear to the unenlightened spectator to spring only from reality and truth.

S 3 _b_. "_Margaret Pearson._"] This Padiham witch fared better than her neighbours, being sentenced only to the pillory. Nothing affords a stronger proof of the vindictive pertinacity with which these prosecutions were carried on than the fact of this old and helpless creature being put on her trial three several times upon such evidence as follows. Chattox, like many other persons in her situation, was disposed to have as many companions in punishment, crime or no crime, as she could compa.s.s, and denounced her accordingly: "The said Pearson's wife is as ill as shee."

T _a_. "_The said Margerie did carrie the said Toade out of the said house in a paire of tonges._"] This toad was disposed of more easily than that of Julian c.o.x, as to which see Glanvil's _Collection of Relations_, p. 192:--

Another witness swore, that as he pa.s.sed by c.o.x her door, she was taking a pipe of tobacco upon the threshold of her door, and invited him to come in and take a pipe, which he did. And as he was talking Julian said to him, Neighbour, look what a pretty thing there is. He look't down, and there was a monstrous great toad betwixt his leggs, staring him in the face. He endeavoured to kill it by spurning it, but could not hit it. Whereupon Julian bad him forbear, and it would do him no hurt. But he threw down his pipe and went home, (which was about two miles off of Julian c.o.x her house,) and told his family what had happened, and that he believed it was one of Julian c.o.x her devils. After, he was taking a pipe of tobacco at home, and the same toad appeared betwixt his leggs. 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. He endeavoured to burn it, but could not. At length he took a switch and beat it. The toad ran several times about the room to avoid him he still pursuing it with correction. At length the toad cryed and vanish't, and he was never after troubled with it.

Dr. More's comment on the circ.u.mstance is written with all the seriousness so important a part of a witch's supellex deserves. He commences defending the huntsman, who swore that he hunted a hare, and when he came to take it up, he found it to be Julian c.o.x:

Those half-witted people thought he swore false, I suppose because they imagined that what he told implied that Julian c.o.x was turned into an hare. Which she was not, nor did his report imply any such real metamorphosis of her body, but that these ludicrous daemons exhibited to the sight of this huntsman and his doggs the shape of an Hare, one of them turning himself into such a form, and others hurrying on the body of Julian near the same place, and at the same swiftness, but interposing betwixt that hare-like spectre and her body, modifying the air so that the scene there, to the beholders sight, was as if nothing but air were there, and a shew of earth perpetually suited to that where the hare pa.s.sed. As I have heard of some painters that have drawn the sky in an huge large landskip, so lively that the birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so have fallen down. And if painters and juglers by the tricks of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits as far surpa.s.s them in all such praestigious doings as the air surpa.s.ses the earth for subtilty.

And the like praestigiae may be in the toad. It might be a real toad (though actuated and guided by a daemon) which was cut in pieces, and that also which was whipt about, and at last s.n.a.t.c.ht out of sight (as if it had vanished) by these aerial hocus-pocus's. And if some juglers have tricks to take hot coals into their mouth without hurt, certainly it is not surprising that some small attempt did not suffice to burn that toad. That such a toad, sent by a witch and crawling up the body of the man of the house as he sate by the fire's side, was overmastered by him and his wife together, and burnt in the fire; I have heard credibly reported by one of the Isle of Ely. _Of these daemoniack vermin, I have heard other stories also, as of a rat that followed a man some score of miles trudging through thick and thin along with him._ So little difficulty is there in that of the toad.--_Glanvil's Collection of Relations_, p.

200.

T 2 _a_ 1. "_Isabel Robey._" This person was of Windle, in the parish of Prescot, a considerable distance from Pendle. The Gerards were lords of the manor of Windle. Sir Thomas Gerard, before whom the examinations were taken, was created baronet, 22nd May, 9th James I.; and thrice married. From him the present Sir John Gerard, of New Hall, near Warrington, is descended. Sir Thomas was determined that the hundred of West Derby should have its witch as well as the other parts of the county. A more melancholy tissue of absurd and incoherent accusations than those against this last of the prisoners convicted on this occasion, it would not be easy to find; who was hanged, for all that appears, because one person was suddenly "pinched on her thigh, as she thought, with four fingers and a thumb," and because another was "sore pained with a great warch in his bones."

T 2 _a_ 2. "_This Countie of Lancaster, which now may lawfully bee said to abound asmuch in Witches of diuers kindes as Seminaries, Iesuites, and Papists._"] Truly, the county palatine was in sad case, according to Master Potts's account. If the crop of each of these was over abundant, it was from no fault of the learned judges, who, in their commissions of _Oyer and Terminer_, subjected it pretty liberally to the pruning-hook of the executioner.

T 2 _a_ 3. "_This lamentable and wofull Tragedie, wherein his Maiestie hath lost so many Subjects, Mothers their Children, Fathers their Friends and Kinsfolk._" The Lancas.h.i.+re bill of mortality, under the head witchcraft, so far as it can be collected from this tract, will run thus:--

1. Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in Pendle.

2. Richard a.s.sheton, son of Richard a.s.sheton, of Downham, Esquire.

3. Child of Richard Baldwin, of Wheethead, within the forest of Pendle.

4. John Device, or Davies, of Pendle.

5. Anne Nutter, daughter of Anthony Nutter, of Pendle.

6. Child of John Moore, of Higham.

7. Hugh Moore, of Pendle.

8. John Robinson, _alias_ Swyer.

9. James Robinson.

10. Henry Mytton, of the Rough Lee.

11. Anne Townley, wife of Henry Townley, of the Carr, gentleman.

12. John Duckworth.

13. John Hargraves, of Goldshaw Booth.

14. Blaze Hargraves, of Higham.

15. Christopher Nutter.

16. Anne Folds, of Colne.

Sixteen persons reported dead of this common epidemic, besides a countless number with pains and "starkness in their limbs," and "a great warch in their bones!" No wonder that Doctors Bromley and Potts thought active treatment necessary, with a decided preference for hemp, as the leading specific.

T 3 _b_. "_With great warch in his bones._"] Warch is a word well known and still used in this sense, _i.e._, pain, in Lancas.h.i.+re.

T 4 _b_ 1. "_The said Peter was now satisfied that the said Isabel Robey was no Witch, by sending to one Halseworths, which they call a wiseman._"] I honour the memory of this Halsworth, or Houldsworth, as I suppose it should be spelled, for he was indeed a wise man in days when wisdom was an extremely scarce commodity.

T 4 _b_ 2. "_To abide vpon it._"] _i.e._, my abiding opinion is.

X _a_. "_Elizabeth Astley, John Ramsden, Alice Gray, Isabel Sidegraues, Lawrence Hay._"] The specific charges against these persons, with the exception of Alice Gray, do not appear, nor is it said where their places of residence were. Alice Gray was reputed to have been at the meeting of witches at Malkin's Tower, and to her the judge refers, perhaps, in particular, when he says, "Without question, there are amongst you that are as deepe in this action as any of them that are condemned to die for their offences."

X _b_. "_The Execution of the Witches._"] We could have dispensed with many of the flowers of rhetoric with which the pages of this discovery are strewed, if Master Potts would have favoured us with a plain, unvarnished account of what occurred at this execution. It is here, in the most interesting point of all, that his narrative, in other respects so full and abundant, stops short, and seems curtailed of its just proportions. The "learned and worthy preacher," to whom the prisoners were commended by the judge, was probably Mr. William Leigh, of Standish, before mentioned. Amongst his papers or correspondence, if they should happen to have been preserved, some account may eventually be found of the sad closing scene of these melancholy victims of superst.i.tion.

X 2 _a_. "_Neither can I paint in extraordinarie tearmes._"] The worthy clerk is too modest. He is a great painter, the Tintoretto of witchcraft.

Y _a_ 1. "_Hauing cut off Thomas Lister, Esquire, father to this gentleman now liuing._"] Thomas Lister, of Westby, ancestor of the Listers, Lords Ribblesdale, married Jane, daughter of John Greenacres, Esquire, of Worston, county of Lancaster, and was buried at Gisburn, February 8th, 1607. His son, Thomas Lister, referred to as the "gentleman now living," married Jane, daughter of Thomas Heber, Esq., of Marton, after mentioned, and was buried at Gisburn, July 10th, 1619.

Y _a_ 2. "_Was Indicted and Arraigned for the murder of a Child of one Dodg-sonnes._"] One acquittal was no protection to these unhappy creatures. It caused only additional exasperation, and, sooner or later, they were brought within what Donne calls "the hungry statutes'

gaping jaws." Whether superst.i.tion or malice prompted this prosecution, on the part of Mr. Lister, it is difficult to say. Some grudge he entertained, or cause of offence he had taken up against this Jennet Preston, might be her death warrant in those days, when it was penal for a woman to be old, helpless, ugly, and poor. She was not so fortunate as the females tried at York, nine years afterwards, for bewitching the children of Edward Fairfax, of Fuyston, in the forest of Knaresborough, to whom we owe the only English translation of Ta.s.so worthy of the name. These females, six in number, were indicted at two successive a.s.sizes, and every effort was made by the

"Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung,"

to procure their conviction. Never was a more unequal contest. On the one side was a relentless antagonist, armed with wealth, influence, learning, and accomplishments, and whose family connections gave him an unlimited power in the county; and on the other, six helpless persons, whose s.e.x, age, and poverty were almost sufficient for their condemnation, without any evidence at all. Yet, owing to the magnanimous firmness of the judge, whose name, deserving of immortal honour, I regret has not been preserved, these efforts were frustrated, and the women accused delivered from the gulph which yawned before them. The disappointment he experienced in this instance, in being defrauded, as he thought, of a conviction for which he had strained every nerve and sinew, and in not being allowed to render the forest of Knaresborough as famous as that of Pendle, cast a gloom of despondency over the remaining days of this admirable poet, who has left a narration of the whole transaction, of most singular interest and curiosity, yet unpublished. The MSS. now in my possession, and which came from Mr. Bright's collection, consists of seventy-eight closely-written folio pages. It is ent.i.tled "A Discourse of Witchcraft, as it was enacted in the family of Mr. Edward Fairfax, of Fuystone, coun. Ebor, 1621." From page 78 to 144 are a series of ninety-three most extraordinary and spirited sketches, made with the pen, of the witches, devils, monsters, and apparitions referred to in the narrative.

Y 2 _a_. "_Master Heyber._"] This was Thomas Hayber, or Heber, of Marton, in Craven, Esquire, who was buried at Marton, 7th February, 1633. He was the ancestor of Bishop Reginald Heber and the late Richard Heber, Esq.

Y 3 _a_. "_The said Iennet Preston comming to touch the dead corpes, they bled fresh bloud presently._"] On the popular superst.i.tion of touching the corpse of a murdered person, as an ordeal or test for the discovery of the innocence or guilt of suspected murderers, the reader cannot better be referred than to the very learned and elaborate essay in Pitcairne's _Criminal Trials_, vol. iii. p. 182-189. Amongst the authors there quoted, Webster is omitted, who, (see _Displaying of supposed Witchcraft_, p. 304,) discusses the point at considerable length, and with an earnest and implicit faith singularly at variance with his enlightened scepticism in other matters. But there were regions of superst.i.tion in which even this Sampson of logic became imbecile and powerless. The rationale of the bleeding of a murdered corpse at the touch of the murderer is given by Sir Kenelm Digby with his usual force and spirit:

To this cause, peradventure, may be reduced the strange effect which is frequently seen in England, when, _at the approach of the Murderer, the slain body suddenly bleedeth afresh_. For certainly the Souls of them that are treacherously murdered by surprise, use to leaue their bodies with extreme unwillingness, and with vehement indignation against them that force them to so unprovided and abhorred a pa.s.sage! That Soul, then, to wreak its evil talent against the hated Murderer, and to draw a just and desired revenge upon his head, would do all it can to manifest the author of the fact! To _speak_ it cannot--for in itself it wanteth the organs of voice; and those it is parted from are now grown too heavy, and are too benummed, for to give motion unto: Yet some change it desireth to make in the body, which it hath so vehement inclination to; and therefore is the aptest for it to work upon. It must then endeavour to cause a motion in the subtilest and most fluid parts (and consequently the most moveable ones) of it.

This can be nothing but THE BLOOD, which then being violently moved, _must needs gush out at those places where it findeth issue_!

In the two following Scotch cases of witchcraft, this test was resorted to. The first was that of

MARIOUN PEEBLES,[79] _alias_ Pardone, spouse to SWENE, in Hildiswick, who was, on March 22, 1644, sentenced to be strangled at a stake, and burnt to ashes, at _the Hill of Berrie_, for WITCHCRAFT and MURDER. Marion and her husband having 'ane deadlie and venefical malice in her heart'

against Edward Halero in Overure, and being determined 'to destroy and put him down,' being 'transformed in the lyknes of ane pellack-quhaill, (the Devill changing her spirit, quhilk fled in the same quhaill,') and the said Edward and other four individuals being in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat, coming from the Sea, at the North-banks of Hildiswick, 'on ane fair morning, did c.u.m under the said boat, and overturnit her with ease, and drowned and devoired thame in the sey, right at the sh.o.r.e, when there wis na danger wtherwayis.' The bodies of Halero and another of these hapless fishermen having been found, Marion and Swene 'wir sent for, and brought to see thame, and to lay thair hands on thame, ...

dayis after said death and away-casting, quhaire thair bluid was evanished and desolved, from every natural cours or caus, s.h.i.+ne, and run; the said umquhill Edward _bled at the collir-bain or craig-bane_, and the said ...,[80] _in the hand and fingers, gus.h.i.+ng out bluid thairat_, to the great admiration of the beholders--and revelation of the judgement of the Almytie! And by which lyk occasionis and miraculous works of G.o.d, made manifest in Murders and the Murderers; whereby, be many frequent occasiones brought to light, and the Murderers, be the said proof brought to judgment, conuict and condemned, not only in this Kingdom, also this countrie, but lykwayis in maist forrin Christiane Kingdomis; and be so manie frequent precedentis and practising of and tuitching Murderis and Murdereris, notourlie known: So, the forsaid Murder and Witchcraft of the saidis persons, with the rest of their companions, through your said Husband's deed, art, part, rad,[81] and counsall, is manifest and cleir to all, not onlie through and by the foirsaid precedentis of your malice, wicked and malishes[82]

practises, by Witchcraft, Confessionis, and Declarationis of the said umquill Janet Fraser, Witch, revealed to her, as said is, and quha wis desyrit by him to concur and a.s.sist with you to the doing thereof; but lykways _be the declaration and revelation of the justice and judgementis of G.o.d, through the said issuing of bluid from the bodies_!'

&c.

A similar and very remarkable instance is related in the following Triall: In the Dittay of CHRISTIAN WILSON, alias _the Lanthorne_,[83] accused of Murder, Witchcraft, &c., (which is founded upon the examinations of James Wilson, Abraham Macmillan, William Crichton, and Fyfe and George Erskine, &c. led before Sir William Murray of Newtoun, and other Commissioners, at Dalkeith, Jun. 14, 1661,) it is stated, that 'Ther being enimitie betuixt the said Christiane and Alexander Wilsone, her brother, and shoe having often tymes threatned him, at length, about 7 or 8 monthes since, altho' the said Alexander was sene that day of his death, at three houres afternoone, in good health, walking about his bussnesse and office; yitt, at fyve howres in that same night, he was fownd dead, lying in his owne howse, naked as he was borne, with his face torne and rent, without any appearance of a spot of blood either wpon his bodie or neigh to it. And altho' many of the neiboures in the toune (Dalkeith) come into his howse to see the dead corpe, yitt shoe newar offered to come, howbeit her dwelling was nixt adjacent thairto; nor had shoe so much as any seiming greiff for his death. Bot the Minister and Bailliffes of the towne, taking great suspitione of her, in respect of her cairiage comand it that shoe showld be browght in; bot when shoe come, shoe come trembling all the way to the howse--bot _shoe refuised to come nigh_ THE CORPS _or to_ TUITCH _it_ saying, that shoe "nevir tuitched a dead corpe in her lyfe!" Bot being arnestly desyred by the Minister, Bailliffes, and hir brother's friends who was killed, that shoe wold "bot _tuitch the corpes softlie_,"

shoe granted to doe it--but before shoe did it, the Sone being shyning in at the howse, shoe exprest her selfe thus, humbly desyring, that "as the Lord made the Sone to shyne and give light into that howse, that also _he wald give light to discovering of that Murder_!" And with these words, shoe TUITCHEING _the wound of the dead man, verie saftlie_, it being whyte and cleane, without any spot of blod or the lyke!--yitt IMEDIATLY, _whill her fingers was wpon it_, THE BLOOD RUSHED OWT OF IT, to the great admiratioune[84] of all the behoulders, who tooke it for _discoverie of the Murder_, according to her owne prayers.--For ther was ane great lumpe of flesh taken out of his cheik, so smowthlie, as no rasor in the world cowld have made so ticht ane incisioune, wpon flesh, or cheis--and ther wes no blood at all in the wownd--nor did it at all blead, altho' that many persones befor had tuitched it, whill[85] shoe did tuitche it! And the howse being searched all over, for the s.h.i.+rt of the dead man, yitt it cowld not be found; and altho' the howse was full of people all that night, ever vatching the corpes;[86]

neither did any of them tuitch him that night--which is probable[87]--yitt, in the morneing, his s.h.i.+rt was fownd tyed fast abowt his neck, as a brechame,[88] non knowing how this come to pa.s.s! And this Cristian did immediatlie transport all her owne goods owt of her own howse into her dowghter's, purposing to flie away--bot was therwpon apprehendit and imprisoned.'--_Pitcairn's Criminal Trials_, vol. iii. p. 194.

[Footnote 79: See Dr. Hibbert's "History of Orkney," &c., to which this remarkable Trial is appended.]

[Footnote 80: The name left blank.]

[Footnote 81: Rede; advice.]

[Footnote 82: Malicious.]