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[14] It must not for a moment, however, be forgotten that these confessions had been wrung from tortured creatures.
[15] 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.
[16] 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."
[17] See Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memorials of English Affairs ... (London, 1682; Oxford, 1853), ed. of 1853, I, 501.
[18] "H. F."'s publication is the True and exact Relation 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, Desiderata Curiosa (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. e. , 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.
[19] A Diary or an Exact Journall, July 24-31, 1645, pp. 5-6.
[20] A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches at St. Edmundsbury ... (London, 1645), 9.
[21] Ibid. , 6.
[22] Ibid.
[23] John Gaule, Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts (London, 1646), 78, 79.
[24] 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."
[25] Suffolk Institute of Archæology, Proceedings, X, 378. Baxter seems to have started the notion that Lowes was a "reading parson," or Anglican.
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[26] Ibid.
[27] See A Magazine of Scandall, or a heape of wickednesse of two infamous Ministers (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.
[28] 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 County Folk Lore, Suffolk (Folk Lore Soc.), 178, which adds the above-quoted testimony as to his litigiousness.
[29] Stearne, 24.
[30] A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches, 5; Moderate Intelligencer, September 4-11, 1645.
[31] See Samuel Clarke, Lives of sundry Eminent Persons ... (London, 1683), 172. In writing the life of Samuel Fairclough, Clarke used Fairclough's papers; see ibid. , 163.
[32] Fairclough was a Non-Conformist, but not actively sympathetic with Presbyterianism. Calamy was counted a Presbyterian.
[33] Hopkins, 5-6; Stearne, 18.
[34] One of these was Lowes.
[35] A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches.
[36] Stearne, 14.
[37] A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches, 5.
[38] Ibid. ; Stearne, 25.
[39] 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, Memorials, I, 501.
[40] 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 County Folk Lore, Suffolk (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.
[41] Moderate Intelligencer, September 4-11, 1645.
[42] Howell, Familiar Letters (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.
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[43] Joseph Hall, Soliloquies (London, 1651), 52-53.
[44] Thomas Ady, Candle in the Dark (London, 1656), 101-105.
[45] The Rev. John Worthington attended the trial. In mentioning it in his diary, he made no comment. Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington, I (Chetham Soc., no. 13, 1847), 22.
[46] So, at least, says Whitelocke, Memorials, I, 487.
[47] J. G. Nall, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft (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.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, IX, pt. i, 320.
[50] The Collection of Modern Relations 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, e. g. , see the recent essay on Hopkins by J. O. Jones, in Seccombe's Twelve Bad Men, 60. They can all be traced back through various lines to this source.
[51] H. Manship, History of Great Yarmouth, continued by C. J. Palmer (Great Yarmouth, 1854-1856), where the Yarmouth records about Hopkins are given in full. See also H. Harrod, in Norfolk Archæology (Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc., 1847-1864), IV, 249.
[52] The Lawes against Witches and Conjuration ... (London, 1645), 4. J. O. Jones, in his account of Hopkins, loc. cit. , says that "many were hanged or burned in Ipswich." I believe that no authority can be cited for this statement.
[53] The first is in, A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches, 5. We of course do not know that the sentence was carried out.
[54] The master of a ship had been "sutor" for her grandchild; The Lawes against Witches, 8. She was a
"professour of Religion, a constant hearer of the Word for these many years."
[55] Ibid.
[56] I. e., The Lawes against Witches (London, 1645). See below, appendix A, § 4.
[57] N. F. Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh (Ipswich, 1890), 43-44.
[58] 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.
[59] A. G. Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket (Ipswich, 1844), 170.
[60] For a list of these towns, see below, appendix C, under 1645, Suffolk.
[61] Stearne, 45, two instances.
[62] Ibid. , 37, 39, 45.
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[63] Thomas Ady, A Candle in the Dark, 135.
[64] Stearne, 39.
[65] His whole confession reads like the utterance of a tortured man.
[66] He had previously been found with a rope around his neck. This was of course attributed to witchcraft.
Stearne, 35.
[67] Ibid. , 11.
[68] 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, The Witches of Huntingdon, their Examinations and Confessions ...
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."
[69] I. e. , witches.
[70] This letter is printed by Gaule at the opening of his Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts.
[71] Stearne, 11; cf. below, appendix C, 1646 (pp. 405-406).
[72] 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, The Witches of Huntingdon) 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."
[73] The swimming ordeal was perhaps unofficial; see Stearne, 19. Another case was that of Elizabeth Chandler, who was "duckt"; Witches of Huntingdon, 8.
[74] Tilbrooke-bushes, Stearne, 11; Risden, ibid. , 31.
[75] This may be inferred from Stearne's words: "but afterward I heard that she made a very large confession,"
ibid. , 31.
[76] 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, 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. 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 ( Witch, Warlock, and Magician, London, 1889), all accept this date. An examination of the pamphlet shows that it was cleverly put together from the True and Exact Relation 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 CHAPTER VIII.
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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.
[77] A. Gibbons, ed., Ely Episcopal Records (Lincoln, 1891), 112-113.
[78] Stearne, 37.
[79] That there were assizes is proved by the statement that "Moore's wife" confessed before the "Judge, Bench, and Country," ibid. , 21-22, as well as by the reference in the Ely Episcopal Records, 113, to the
"assizes."
[80] Stearne, 17, 21-22.
[81] For a clear statement of this point of view, see ibid. , 40-50.
[82] Stearne, 46-47.
[83] Ibid. , 50.
[84] Ibid. , 17.
[85] Ibid. , 13.
[86] Ibid. , 14.
[87] 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, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh, 43.
[88] Hopkins, 7.
[89] Hopkins, 9.
[90] Stearne, 18. Hopkins did not attempt to deny the use of the ordeal. He supported himself by quoting James; see Hopkins, 6.
[91] Stearne, 18. He means, of course, Serjeant Godbolt.
[92] 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).
[93] 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."
[94] Not until after Stearne was already busy elsewhere. Stearne, 58.
[95] 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.
[96] Hopkins, 11.
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[97] County Folk Lore, Suffolk (Folk Lore Soc.) 176, quoting from J. T. Varden in the East Anglian Handbook for 1885, p. 89.
[98] James Howell, Familiar Letters, 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" ( ibid. , 506). But, as noted above, his dates are not to be trusted.
[99] See his History of Rationalism.
[100] A name no greater, however, than that of Glanvill, who was a prominent Anglican.
[101] 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.
[102] The Magazine of Scandall, 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.
[103] 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."
[104] Scott has pictured this very well in Woodstock. For a good example of it see The [D]Ivell in Kent, or His strange Delusions at Sandwitch (London, 1647).
[105] See below, note 107.
[106] The witches of Aldeburgh were tried at the "sessions," N. F. Hele, op. cit. , 43-44. Mother Lakeland was probably condemned by the justices of the peace; see The Lawes against Witches. 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, Memorials, II, 31, 44, 64.
[107] For a few of the evidences of this situation during these years see James Thompson, Leicester (Leicester, 1849), 401; Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, Various, I, 109-110, 322; XIII, 4, p. 216 (note gaps in the records); Whitelocke, Memorials, I, 436; II, 31, 44, 64, 196; III, 152. Innumerable other references could be added to prove this point. F. A. Inderwick in his Interregnum (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.
[108] See The Examination, Confession, 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 CHAPTER VIII.
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was examined, and gave some damaging evidence against herself. She named several goodwives who had very loose tongues.
[109] Stearne, 13, 14.
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CHAPTER IX.
WITCHCRAFT DURING THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE.
We have, in the last chapter, traced the history of 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.
The epidemic of 1649 came from Scotland. Throughout the year the northern kingdom had been "infested."[1]
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" to come to Berwick, and had promised him immunity from all violence.[2] 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.[3] On the contrary, they had assisted Cromwell, so some of the more ingenious of them claimed, at the battle of Preston.[4] 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.
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 everything possible to help him. On his arrival in Newcastle they sent the bellman through the town inviting every one to make complaints.[5] 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.[6] 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[7] of Newcastle.[8]
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.[9] Unfortunately the man got away to Scotland, where he later suffered death for his deeds, probably during the Cromwellian regime in that country.[10]
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.[11] 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 CHAPTER IX.
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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 refused 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.
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.[12] 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.
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 Bodenham,[13] 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.
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 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."
The case was turned over by the justices of the peace to the assizes at Salisbury, w