one Burnet, in the north of Scotland, where strange things were seen,
which I can get sufficiently attested. Also in the southwest border of
Scotland, in Annandale, there is a house called Powdine, belonging to
a gentleman called Johnston; that house hath been haunted these 50 or
60 years. At my coming to Worcester, 1651, I spoke with the gentleman,
(being myself quartered within two miles of the house,) he told me
many extraordinary relations consisting in his own knowledge; and I
carried him to my master, to whom he made the same relations,--noises
and apparitions, drums and trumpets heard before the last war, yea, he
said that some English soldiers quartered in his house were soundly
beaten by that irresistible inhabitant; (this last I wondered at, for
I rather expected he should have been a remonstrater, and opposed the
resistance,) and within this fortnight Mr. James Sharp was with me,
(him you know, and he is now at London,) he tells me that spirit now
speaks, and appears frequently in the shape of a naked arm; but other
discourses took me off from further inquiry. These things I tell you
in obedience to your desire, but as I said before, I desire them not
to be printed. Atheists are not to be convinced by stories; their own
senses will no more convert them than sense will convert a papist from
transubstantiation; and Scottish stories would make the disaffected
jeer Scotland, which is the object of scorn enough already.
When I was in Dorsetshire, prisoner, one Mr Jo. Hodder, minister of
Hauke-church, in that county, told me of strange apparitions and
unquestionable evidences of the actings of spirits in a house, yea,
a religious house of that county, of which he was himself an ear and
eye-witness.
In Dorchester also, the son of a Reverend Mr Jo. White, (who was
assessor to the Assembly at Westminster,) told me many particulars
of that house in Lambeth, where his father lived in the time of the
Assembly, which then was unquestionably haunted with spirits. I do
well remember I dined with old Mr White there one day, and at dinner
he told me much of it; and that that morning the spirit called up the
maid to lay the beef to the fire. Of the two last you maybe satisfied
when you please: and at this present I am told that there is a house at
Folie-John-Park, not three miles from the place, haunted with spirits.
But I must leave room for my Loudun nuns, and not write a book. In
the year 1637, being at Paris in the spring, the city was so full of
the possession of a whole cloyster of nuns, and some laick wenches at
Loudun, books printed, and strange stories told, that few doubted it;
and I, who was perswaded such a thing might be, and that it was not
impossible the devil could possess a nun as well as another, doubted
it as little as any body. So coming into that country, I went a day's
journey out of my way to satisfy my curiosity. Into the chappel I came
in the morning of a holy day, and with as little prejudice as any
could have, for I believed verily to have seen some strange sights;
but when I had seen exorcising enough of three or four of them in
the chappel, and could hear nothing but wanton wenches singing baudy
songs in French, I began to suspect a fourbe, and in great gravity
went to a jesuite, and told him I had come a great way in hope to see
some strange thing, and was sorry to be disappointed. He commended
my holy curiosity, and after he had thought a while, he desired me
to go to the Castle, and from thence, at such an hour, to the parish
church, and I should be satisfied. I wondered at his correspondence,
yet gravely went where he directed me. In the Castle I saw little, but
in the parish church I saw a great many people gazing, and a wench
pretty well taught to play tricks, yet nothing so much as I have seen
twenty tumblers and rope-dancers do. Back I came to the nuns chappel,
where I saw the Jesuits still hard at work, at several altars, and one
poor capuchin, who was an object of pity, for he was possessed indeed
with a melancholy fancy that devils were running about his head, and
constantly was applying relicks. I saw the mother superior exorcised,
and saw the hand on which they would have made us believe the names
I. H. S. Maria Joseph were written by miracles; (but it was apparent
to me it was done with aquafortis) then my patience was quite spent,
and I went to a Jesuit and told him my mind freely. He still maintained
a real possession, and I desired for a tryal, to speak a strange
language. He asked, "What language?" I told him, "I would not tell;
but neither he nor all those devils should understand me." He asked,
"If I would be converted upon the tryal?" (for I had discovered I was
no papist.) I told him, "That was not the question, nor could all the
devils in hell pervert me; but the question was, if that was a real
possession, and if any could understand me, I shall confess it under my
hand." His answer was, "These devils have not travelled;" and this I
replied to with a loud laughter, nor could I get any more satisfaction;
only in the town I heard enough that it was a cheat invented to burn
a curate, (his name, as I take it, was Cupiff,) and the man had been
really burned to ashes as a witch, but the people said it was for his
conversion from them. At my coming to Saumar next day, my countryman,
Dr. Duncan, Principle of the College at Saumar, told me how he had made
a clearer discovery of the cheat in presence of the Bishop of Poitiers,
and of all the country, how he had held fast one of the pretended nuns
arms, in spite of all the power of their exorcisms, and challenged all
the devils in hell to take it out of his hand. This, with many more
circumstances, he told me, and he printed them to the world; but this
is already too tedious. One more journey I made to see possessed women
exorcised near Antwerp, anno 1649; but saw only some great Holland
wenches hear exorcism patiently, and belch most abominably. So if those
were devils, they were windy devils, but I thought they were only
possessed with a morning's draught of too new beer. Some of the Loudun
nuns, after great resistance and squeeking, did, on great importunity,
adore their host, and the jesuites did desire us to see the power of
the church, where all I wondered at was his blasphemy, in saying to the
pretended devil,--"_Prostratum adorabis creatorem tuum, quem digitis
teneo_;" but my paper, as well as my discretion, calls for an end. Your
desire, and my obedience, is all I can plead for your receiving so long
a rabble, from, Sir,
Your most faithful Friend and Servant,
LAUDERDAILE.
_Windsor Castle, March 12, 1659._
APPENDIX II.
[The following Notes are taken from Arnot's Collection of Criminal
Trials in Scotland]:--
1588.
_Alison Pearson._
Alison Pearson in Byre-hills, Fifeshire,[14] was convicted of
practising sorcery, and of invoking the Devil. She confessed that she
had associated with the Queen of the Fairies for many years,[15] and
that she had friends in the Court of Elfland, who were of her own
blood. She said that William Simpson, late the King's smith, was,
in the eighth year of his age, carried off by an Egyptian to Egypt,
where he remained twelve years; and that this Egyptian was a giant:
That the Devil appeared to her in the form of this William Simpson,
who was a great scholar, and a doctor of medicine, who cured her
diseases: That he has appeared to her, accompanied with many men and
women, who made merry with bag-pipes, good cheer, and wine: That the
good neighbours[16] attended, and prepared their charms in pans over
the fire; that the herbs of which they composed their charms, were
gathered before sunrise; and that with these they cured the Bishop
of St. Andrews of a fever and flux.--She underwent all the legal
forms customary in cases of witchcraft, _i.e._ she was convicted and
condemned, strangled and burned.
1590.
_Janet Grant and Janet Clerk._
Janet Grant and Janet Clerk[17] were convicted of bewitching several
persons to death, of taking away the privy members of some folks, and
bestowing them on others; and of raising the devil.
_John Cunninghame._
It was proved against John Cunninghame, that the Devil appeared to
him in white raiment,[18] and promised, that, if he would become
his servant, he should never want, and should be revenged of all
his enemies: That he was carried in an ecstacy to the kirk of North
Berwick, where the Devil preached to him, and many others, bidding
them not spare to do evil, but to eat, drink, and be merry; for he
should raise them all up gloriously at the Last Day: That the Devil
made him do homage, by kissing his.... That he (the prisoner) raised
the wind on the King's passage to Denmark: That he met with Satan on
the King's return from Denmark; and Satan promised to raise a mist
by which his Majesty should be thrown upon the coast of England; and
thereupon threw something like a football into the sea, which raised a
vapour.
_Agnes Sampson._
Agnes Sampson in Keith,[19] a grave matron-like woman, of a rank and
comprehension above the vulgar, was accused of having renounced her
baptism, and of having received the devil's mark; of raising storms
to prevent the Queen's coming from Denmark; of being at the famous
meeting at North Berwick, where six men and ninety women, witches,
were present, dancing to one of their number, who played to them on a
Jew's-harp. It was charged in the indictment that the Devil was present
at this meeting; and started up in the pulpit, which was hung round
with black candles: That he called them all by their names, asked them,
If they had kept their promises, and been good servants, and what they
had done since the last meeting: That they opened up three graves, and
cut off the joints from the dead bodies fingers, and that the prisoner
got for her share two joints and a winding sheet, to make powder of to
do mischief: That the Devil was dressed in a black gown and hat; and
that he ordered them to keep his commandments, which were to do all the
ill they could, and to kiss his....
1591.
_Euphan M'Calzeane._
Euphan M'Calzeane was a lady possessed of a considerable estate in her
own right. She was the daughter of Thomas M'Calzeane Lord Cliftonhall,
one of the Senators of the College of Justice, whose death in the year
1581, spared him the disgrace and misery of seeing his daughter fall by
the hands of the executioner. She was married to a gentleman of her own
name, by whom she had three children. She was accused of treasonably
conspiring the King's death by enchantments;[20] particularly by
training a waxen picture of the King; of raising storms to hinder his
return from Denmark; and of various other articles of witchcraft. She
was heard by counsel in her defence; was found guilty by the jury,
which consisted of landed gentlemen of note; and her punishment was
still severer than that commonly inflicted on the Weyward Sisters,--She
was burned alive, and her estate confiscated. Her children, however,
after being thus barbarously robbed of their mother, were[21] restored
by act of Parliament against the forfeiture. The act does not say
that the sentence was unjust; but that the King was touched in honour
and conscience to restore the children. But to move the wheels of his
Majesty's conscience, the children had to grease them, by a payment of
five thousand merks to the donator of escheat,[22] and by relinquishing
the estate of Clifton-hall, which the King gave to Sir James Sandilands
of Slamanno.
As a striking picture of the state of justice, humanity, and science in
those times,[23] it may be remarked that this Sir James Sandilands, a
favourite of the King's, ("ex interiore principis familiaritate,") who
got this estate, which the daughter of one Lord of Session forfeited,
on account of being a witch, did that very year murder another Lord
of Session in the suburbs of Edinburgh, in the public street, without
undergoing either trial or punishment.
1620.
_Margaret Wallace._
Margaret Wallace[24] was tried before the Court of Justiciary. The
Duke of Lennox, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and Sir George Erskine of
Innerteil, sat as assessors to the judges, and an eminent counsel
was heard in behalf of the prisoner. She was accused of inflicting
and of curing diseases by inchantment; but it was not specified what
spells she employed. It was libelled against her, that on being taken
suddenly ill she sent for one Christian Graham, a notorious witch,
who afterwards suffered a capital punishment, and that this witch
transferred the disease from the prisoner to a young girl: That the
girl being thus taken ill, her mother was advised by the prisoner
to send for Christian Graham, who answered, that her confidence
was in God, and she would have nothing to do with the Devil or his
instruments: The prisoner replied, "That in a case of this sort
Christian Graham could do as much as God himself; and that without her
aid there was no remedy for the child:" But the mother not consenting,
the prisoner without her knowledge sent for Christian, who muttered
words, and expressed signs, by which she restored the child to health,
&c. Her counsel urged, that the indictment was much too general: That
it ought to have been specified, not simply that she did enchant,
but also by what kind of spells she performed her incantations: That
supposing Christian Graham to have been a witch, and that the prisoner
when taken ill consulted her, still he was entitled to plead that the
prisoner consulted her on account of her medical knowledge, and not for
her skill in sorcery: That as to blasphemous expressions however well
they might found a trial for blasphemy, they by no means inferred the
crime of witchcraft; and he quoted many authorities from the Civil and
Canon laws. He farther challenged one of the assizers, because one of
the articles charged against the prisoner was her having done an injury
to his brother-in-law.--The whole defences were repelled by the judges;
and the jury found the prisoner guilty.
1629.
_Isobel Young._
Isobel Young in East Barns was accused of having stopped by enchantment
George Sandie's mill twenty-nine years before; of having prevented his
boat from catching fish while all the other boats at the herring-drave,
or herring fishery, were successful; and that she was the cause of his
failing in his circumstances, and of nothing prospering with him in the
world: That she threatened mischief against one Kerse, who thereupon
lost the power of his leg and arm: That she entertained several
witches in her house, one of whom went out at the roof in likeness of
a cat, and then resumed her own shape: That she took a disease off
her husband, laid it under the barn floor, and transferred it to his
nephew, who when he came into the barn saw the firlot hopping up and
down the floor: That she used the following charm to preserve herself
and her cattle from an infectious distemper, viz. to bury a white ox
and a cat alive throwing in a quantity of salt along with them: That
she had the Devil's mark, &c.
Mr Laurence Macgill and Mr David Primrose appeared as counsel for the
prisoner. They pleaded, that the mill might have stopped, the boat
catched no fish, and the man not prospered in the world, from--natural
causes; and it was not libelled by what spells she had accomplished
them: That as to the man who had lost the power of his leg and arm,
first, she never had the least acquaintance with him; secondly,
she offered to prove that he was lame previous to the threatening
expressions which she was said to have used: That the charge of laying
a disease under a barn floor was a ridiculous fable, taken probably
from a similar story in Ariosto; and that two years had elapsed between
her husband's illness and his nephew's: That what the prosecutor
called the Devil's mark was nothing else than the scar of an old ulcer;
and that the charge of her burying the white ox and the cat was false.
The celebrated Sir Thomas Hope, who was counsel for the prosecution,
replied, that these defences ought to be repelled, and no proof allowed
of them, because contrary to the libel; that is to say, in other words,
because what was urged by the prisoner in her defences contradicted
what was charged by the public prosecutor in his indictment.--The
defences for the prisoner were overruled.--Is it needful for me to add
that she was convicted, strangled, and burned?
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Rec. of Just. 18th May 1588.
[15] In the original it is Queen of Elfland.
[16] Good Neighbours was a term for witches. People were afraid to
speak of them opprobriously, lest they should provoke their resentment.
[17] Records of Justiciary, 7th August 1590.
[18] Ibid, 26th December 1590.
[19] Rec. of Just. Jan. 27. 1590. A story is told of this woman in
Spottiswood's Hist. p. 383. which is nowise confirmed by the record.
His fable is absurd; and seems to have been invented by some zealous
believer in the divine right of Kings.
[20] Rec. of Just., 8th May 1591.
[21] Unprinted Acts, A.D. 1592. No. 70.
[22] He who obtains a gift of the forfeiture.
[23] "Johnstoni Historia Rerum Britannicarum," p. 172.
[24] Records of Justiciary, March 20. 1620.
THE END.
Transcriber's Note.
Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation
inconsistencies have been silently repaired.
Corrections.
The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.
Volume I.
p. 10.
a particular star contsrolled the natal hour of everyone.
a particular star controlled the natal hour of everyone.
p. 12.
of illimitable wealth and endlesss life.
of illimitable wealth and endless life.
p. 30 (Note 3).
The ong windows of the silk-weavers' houses
The long windows of the silk-weavers' houses
Volume II.
p. 16.
so thorougly masters their mind that they fear
so thoroughly masters their mind that they fear
p. 18 (Note 7).
nterponed frae the said Censures
interponed frae the said Censures
p. 27.
they are all to be found in the Nuns of of Loudun,
they are all to be found in the Nuns of Loudun,
p. 34.
that an example convinces a whole asembly.
that an example convinces a whole assembly.
p. 34 (Note 11).
have occasioned her rhaphsodies
have occasioned her rhapsodies
p. 37.
without the slighest increase of pulsation
without the slightest increase of pulsation
p. 39 (Note 11).
female suspected and accused of withcraft
female suspected and accused of witchcraft
p. 40 (Note 11).
to be burned or oherwise executed to death
to be burned or otherwise executed to death
p. 41 (Note 11).
No special act of withcraft was
No special act of witchcraft was
p. 42 (Note 11).
fouud these articles proved,
found these articles proved,
Volume III.
p. 18.
who had been connected wilh the affair
who had been connected with the affair
p. 34.
soldiers quarterted in his house were soundly beaten
soldiers quartered in his house were soundly beaten