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WITCHCRAFT
AND
DEVIL LORE
IN THE
CHANNEL ISLANDS
TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE GUERNSEY ROYAL COURT,
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
BY
JOHN LINWOOD PITTS,
_Membre de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie._
_Editor of "The Patois Poems of the Channel Islands;" "The Sermon on
the Mount and the Parable of the Sower, in the Franco-Norman Dialects
of Guernsey and Sark," &c., &c._
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
--EXODUS xxii, 18.
[Illustration]
Guernsey:
GUILLE-ALLÈS LIBRARY,
AND
THOMAS M. BICHARD, PRINTER TO THE STATES.
1886.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
TO
EDGAR MACCULLOCH, ESQUIRE,
F.S.A., LONDON AND NORMANDY, AND MEMBER OF THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY,
BAILIFF OF GUERNSEY,
WHOSE HISTORICAL RESEARCHES HAVE TENDED SO MUCH TO ELUCIDATE THE
TIME-HONOURED CONSTITUTION
AND
ANCIENT CUSTOMS OF HIS NATIVE ISLAND,
THIS
BRIEF RECORD OF ONE OF THE DARKEST CHAPTERS IN ITS CHEQUERED ANNALS
Is Dedicated
WITH SENTIMENTS OF THE HIGHEST RESPECT AND ESTEEM.
_Venena magnum fas nefasque non valent Convertere humanam
vicem._
HORACE, Epod. V. 87-8.
FOREWORD.
In presenting to the public another little volume of the "Guille-Allès
Library Series," it affords me much pleasure to acknowledge various
kindnesses experienced during its preparation. From Edgar MacCulloch,
Esq., F.S.A., Bailiff of Guernsey, I have received several valuable
hints and suggestions bearing upon the subject; and also from F.J.
Jérémie, Esq., M.A., Jurat of the Royal Court. I am also particularly
indebted to James Gallienne, Esq., Her Majesty's Greffier, for his
uniform kindness and courtesy in allowing the fullest access at all
times to the Archives under his care, not only in respect to the
subject-matter of the present publication, but also in other
historical researches which I have wished to make. I am equally
obliged to Mr. E.M. Cohu and Mr. H.J.V. Torode, Deputy-Greffiers, and
to Mr. A. Isemonger, Bailiff's Clerk, for various information and much
ready help, which materially facilitated my investigations. All these
gentlemen have my cordial acknowledgments and best thanks.
J.L.P.
Guernsey, December, 1885.
NOTE.--The Seal represented on the title page is
that of the Guernsey Bailiwick. It was first granted by
Edward I. in the seventh year of his reign (1279), and bears
the inscription: S. BALLIVIE INSULE DE GERNEREYE.
CONTENTS.
_Page_
DEDICATION v.
FOREWORD vii.
TABLE OF CONTENTS viii.
INTRODUCTION 1
WITCHCRAFT IN GUERNSEY 1
The Witches' Sabbath 2
The Devil's Ointment 2
Three Women burnt for Heresy in Guernsey 3
WITCHCRAFT IN JERSEY 4
Ordinance of the Royal Court 4
Women Hanged and Burnt *4
Mr. Philippe Le Geyt's Opinion 5
Later Superstitions 5
The Pricking of Witches *5
_Sorcerots_, or Witches' Spells 6
Torture of Witches in Guernsey *6
" " Scotland 7
GENERAL PERSECUTION OF WITCHES *7
On the Continent *7
In America *7
In England 8
In Scotland 8
CONFESSIONS OF GUERNSEY WITCHES UNDER TORTURE 9
Collette Du Mont 11
Marie Becquet 15
Isabel Becquet 16
DEPOSITIONS AGAINST COLLAS BECQUET 22
NOTE ON THE GUERNSEY RECORDS 27
WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN GUERNSEY, 1563-1634 28
THE STORY IN BRIEF OF THE GUILLE-ALLÈS LIBRARY 33
INTRODUCTION.
The Witchcraft superstitions of the Channel Islands, sad as they were
in their characteristics and results--as is abundantly evidenced by
our judicial records--were but a part and parcel of that vast wave of
unreasoning credulity which swept across the civilised world during
the Middle Ages, and more or less affected every class of society, and
all sorts and conditions of men. From the lists given in the following
pages (pp. 28-32), it will be seen that in about seventy-one years,
during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I., no fewer than
seventy-eight persons--fifty-eight of them being women, and twenty of
them men--were brought to trial for Sorcery in Guernsey alone. Out of
these unfortunate victims, three women and one man appear to have been
burnt alive; twenty-four women and four men were hanged first and
burnt afterwards; one woman was hanged for returning to the island
after being banished; three women and one man were whipped and had
each an ear cut off; twenty-two women and five men were banished from
the island; while five women and three men had the good fortune to be
acquitted. Most of these accused persons were natives of Guernsey, but
mention is made of one woman from Jersey, of three men and a woman
from Sark, and of a man from Alderney.
With regard to the gatherings at the so-called Witches' Sabbaths,
there can be no doubt that--quite apart from the question of any
diabolic presence at such meetings--very questionable assemblies of
people did take place at intervals among the inhabitants of many
countries. Probably these gatherings first had their rise in the old
pagan times, and were subsequently continued from force of habit, long
after their real origin and significance had been forgotten. Now, it
would be very easy for these orgies to become associated--particularly
in the then superstitious condition of the popular mind--with the
actual bodily presence of the Devil as one of the participants; while
it is also not improbable that, in some cases at least, heartless and
evil-minded persons worked upon the prevailing credulity to further
their own nefarious purposes. Our esteemed Bailiff has offered a
suggestion or two of considerable value on this point with regard to
certain Guernsey phases of the superstition. He thinks it highly
probable that some of these deluded women were actually the dupes of
unprincipled and designing men, who arrayed themselves in various
disguises and then met their unfortunate victims by appointment. This
idea is, indeed, borne out to a great extent by some of the
particulars stated in the following confessions. For instance, some of
the women assert that when they met the Devil he was in the form of a
dog, _but rather larger_; he always stood upon his hind legs--probably
the man's feet; and, when he shook hands with them, his paw _felt like
a hand_--doubtless it _was_ a hand. Another suggestion of the
Bailiff's is also worth notice. It is that the black ointment so often
mentioned as being rubbed on the bodies of the so-called witches, had
a real existence, and may have been so compounded as to act as a
narcotic or intoxicant, and produce a kind of extatic condition, just
as the injection of certain drugs beneath the skin is known to do now.
These suggestions are certainly worth consideration as offering
reasonable solutions of at least two difficulties connected with those
strange and lamentable superstitions. In one way or other there must
have been some physical basis for beliefs so widely extended and so
terribly real. Imagination, of course, possesses a marvellous power of
modification and exaggeration, but still it requires some germs of
fact around which to crystallise. And it is to the discovery of the
nature of such germs that a careful and conscientious observer will
naturally turn his attention.
* * * * *
While speaking of the burning of Witches in Guernsey, I may also
refer for a moment to the three women who, in Queen Mary's reign
suffered death by fire, for heresy, because the reason of their
condemnation and punishment has caused some controversy, and is often
associated in the popular mind with a charge of sorcery. Dr. Heylin in
his _Survey_ (page 323), says:--
Katherine Gowches, a poor woman of St. Peter-Port, in
Guernsey, was noted to be much absent from church, and her
two daughters guilty of the same neglect. Upon this they
were presented before James Amy, then dean of the island,
who, finding in them that they held opinions contrary to
those then allowed about the sacrament of the altar,
pronounced them heretics, and condemned them to the fire.
The poor women, on the other side, pleaded for themselves,
that that doctrine had been taught them in the time of King
Edward; but if the queen was otherwise disposed, they were
content to be of her religion. This was fair but it would
not serve; for by the dean they were delivered unto Helier
Gosselin, then bailiff, and by him unto the fire, July 18,
1556. One of these daughters, Perotine Massey, she was
called, was at that time great with child; her husband, who
was a minister, having in those dangerous times fled the
island; in the middle of the flames and anguish of her
torments, her belly broke in sunder, and her child, a goodly
boy, fell down into the fire, but was presently snatched up
by one W. House, one of the by-standers. Upon the noise of
this strange incident, the cruel bailiff returned command
that the poor infant must be cast again into the flames,
which was accordingly performed; and so that pretty babe was
born a martyr, and added to the number of the holy
innocents.
Parsons, the English Jesuit, has asserted that the women were felons
and were executed for theft, while other apologists have described
them as prostitutes and generally infamous in character. The original
sentences, however, which still exist at the Guernsey _Greffe_, and
which I have examined, conclusively settle the question. Both the
ecclesiastical sentence, which is in Latin, and the civil sentence,
which is in French, distinctly describe the charge as one of _heresy_,
and make no mention whatever of any other crime as having aught to do
with the condemnation.
It has been questioned too whether a child could be born alive under
such circumstances. Mr. F.B. Tupper, in his _History of Guernsey_
(page 151), says: "We are assured by competent surgical authority that
the case is very possible"; and he further mentions that in a volume
entitled _Three Visits to Madagascar_, by the Rev. Wm. Ellis,
published in London, in 1858, a precisely similar case is stated to
have occurred in that island. A native woman was burnt for becoming a
convert to Christianity, and her infant, born in the flames, was
thrust into them again, and burnt also.
Lord Tennyson refers to this Guernsey martyrdom in his historical
drama of _Queen Mary_ (Act v. Scene iv.). It is night-time in London;
a light is burning in the Royal Palace; and he makes two "Voices of
the Night" say:--
_First_:--There's the Queen's light. I hear she cannot live.
_Second_:--God curse her and her Legate! Gardiner burns
Already; but to pay them full in kind,
The hottest hold in all the devil's den
Were but a sort of winter; Sir, in Guernsey,
I watch'd a woman burn; and in her agony
The mother came upon her--a child was born--
And, Sir, they hurl'd it back into the fire,
That, being thus baptised in fire, the babe
Might be in fire for ever. Ah, good neighbour,
There should be something fierier than fire
To yield them their deserts.
With regard to Witchcraft in Jersey, I have not had an opportunity of
personally examining the official records there. I find, however, some
information on the subject, given by M. De La Croix, in his _Ville de
St. Hélier_, and _Les Etats de Jersey_, upon which I have drawn. In
the way of legislation, the Guernsey Court does not appear to have
promulgated any penal statutes on the subject, being content to treat
the crime as one against the common law of the Island. In Jersey on
the contrary, Witchcraft was specially legislated against at least on
one occasion, for we find that on December 23rd, 1591, the Royal Court
of that island passed an Ordinance, of which the following is the
purport:--
Forasmuch as many persons have hitherto committed and
perpetrated great and grievous faults, as well against the
honour and express commandment of God as to the great
scandal of the Christian faith, and of those who are charged
with the administration of justice, by seeking assistance
from Witches and Diviners in their ills and afflictions; and
seeing that ignorance is no excuse for sin, and that no one
can tell what vice and danger may ensue from such practices:
This Act declares that for the time to come everyone shall
turn away from such iniquitous and diabolical practices,
against which the law of God decrees the same punishments as
against Witches and Enchanters themselves; and also in
order that the Divine Vengeance may be averted, which on
account of the impunity with which these crimes have been
committed, now threatens those who have the repression of
them in their hands. It is, therefore, strictly forbidden to
all the inhabitants of this island to receive any counsel or
assistance in their adversities from any Witches or
Diviners, or anyone suspected of practicing Sorcery, under
pain of one month's imprisonment in the Castle, on bread and
water; and on their liberation they shall declare to the
Court the cause of such presumption, and according as this
shall appear reasonable, shall be dealt with as the law of
God directs.
In 1562 two women were executed in Jersey for witchcraft. One of them
named _Anne_, a native of St. Brelade's, was burnt at St. Helier's;
and the other, _Michelle La Blanche_, expiated her crime at the gibbet
of the Hurets, in the parish of St. Ouen, because criminals dwelling
on the Fief Haubert de St. Ouen, were, in accordance with custom,
required to be executed within the boundaries of the said Fief--seeing
that it possessed a gallows-right--and their goods and lands became
forfeited to the Seigneur.
In 1583 a rather curious point of law was raised in connection with a
pending witch-trial at St. Helier's. On the 15th of February in that
year, a suspected witch named _Marion Corbel_, who had been imprisoned
in the Castle awaiting her trial, suddenly died. Whereupon her
relatives came forward and claimed to be heirs to her goods and
chattles, seeing that she had not been convicted of the imputed crime,
and urging that her death put an end to further criminal proceedings.
The Queen's Procureur, however--it was in the reign of
Elizabeth--contended that death was no bar to the completion of the
indictment, although it had effectually removed the criminal from the
jurisdiction of the Court, as far as punishment was concerned. The
very reasonable claim of the deceased woman's relatives was therefore
set aside, and the defunct of course being found guilty, her
possessions reverted to the crown.
Again, forty years later, in 1623, an old woman of sixty, named _Marie
Filleul_, daughter of _Thomas Filleul_, of the parish of St.
Clement's, was tried before a jury of twenty-four of her countrymen,
and found guilty of the diabolical crime of Sorcery. She was therefore
hanged and burnt as a witch, and her goods were confiscated to the
King [James I.], and to the Seigneurs to whom they belonged.
It may be interesting to note here the opinion of Mr. Philippe Le
Geyt, the famous commentator on the constitution and laws of Jersey,
and one of the most enlightened men of his time, who for many years
was Lieutenant-Bailiff of that island. He was born in 1635 and died in
1715, in his eighty-first year. In Vol. I., page 42, of his works,
there occurs a passage of which the following is a translation:--
As Holy Scripture forbids us to allow witches to live, many
persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion
to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has
without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have
purely accidental associations been taken as convincing
proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames
on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I
will not say that there are no witches; but ever since the
difficulty of convicting them has been recognized in the
island, they all seem to have disappeared, as though the
evidence of the times gone by had been but an illusion. This
shows the instability of all things here below.
Coming down now to within a century ago, we find an article in the
_Gazette de Jersey_, of Saturday, March 10th, 1787, complaining of the
great increase of wizards and witches in the island, as well as of
their supposed victims. The writer says that the scenes then taking
place were truly ridiculous, and he details a case that had just
occurred at St. Brelade's as corroborative of his assertion. It
appears that a worthy householder there, had dreamed that a certain
wizard appeared to him and ordered him to poison himself at a date
which was specified, enjoining him above all things not to mention the
incident to anyone. The poor silly fellow was dreadfully distressed,
for he felt convinced that he would have to carry out the disagreeable
command. At the same time he was quite unable to keep so momentous a
secret to himself, and so he divulged the approaching tragedy to his
wife. The good woman's despair was fully equal to his own, and after
much anxious domestic counsel they determined to seek the good offices
of a White Witch (_une Quéraude_), with the hope that her incantations
might overcome the evil spells of the Black Witch who was causing all
the mischief. This White Witch prescribed lengthened fasting and other
preparations for the great ordeal, and on a given night she and the
bewitched householder, together with his wife and four or five trusty
friends with drawn swords, shut themselves up in a room, and commenced
their mysterious ceremonial. There was the boiling of occult herbs;
the roasting of a beeve's heart stuck full of nails and pins; the
reading of certain passages from the family Bible; a mighty
gesticulating with the swords, which were first thrust up the chimney
to prevent the Black Witch from coming down, and anon were pointed
earthward to hinder him from rising up; and so the ridiculous game
went on. The only person who benefited was of course the imposter, who
was paid for her services; while we may perhaps charitably hope that
her dupes also were afterwards easier in their minds. The writer adds
that many other persons besides this man at St. Brelade's, had
latterly believed themselves bewitched, and had consulted wizards, who
were thus driving a profitable trade.
* * * * *
Among the indications and symptoms of a witch, are reckoned various
bodily marks and spots, said to be insensible to pain (page 20),
inability to shed tears, &c. The pricking of witches was at one time a
lucrative profession both in England and Scotland, one of the most
noted prickers being a wretched imposter named Matthew Hopkins who was
sent for to all parts of the country to exercise his vile art. Ralph
Gardner, in his _England's Grievance Discovered_ (1655), speaks also
of two prickers, Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649
and 1650, were sent by the magistrates of Newcastle-on-Tyne, into
Scotland, there to confer with another very able man in that line and
bring him back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty shillings, but
the Scotchman three pounds, per head _of all they could convict_, and
a free passage there and back. When these wretches got to any
town--for they tried all the chief market-towns in the district--the
crier used to go round with his bell, desiring "all people that would
bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be
sent for and tried by the person appointed." As many as thirty women
were brought at once into the Newcastle town-hall, stripped and
pricked, and twenty-seven set aside as guilty. Gardner continues:--
The said witch-finder acquainted Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson
that he knew women whether they were witches or no by their
looks; and when the said person was searching of a
personable and good-like woman, the said colonel replied and
said, 'Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;'
but the Scotchman said she was, for the town said she was,
and therefore he would try her; and presently, in sight of
all the people, laid her body naked to the waist, with her
clothes over her head, by which fright and shame all her
blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran
a pin into her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall,
and then demanded whether she had nothing of his in her
body, but did not bleed? But she, being amazed, replied
little. Then he put his hands up her coats and pulled out
the pin, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of
the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the
aforesaid woman by her blood settling in her right parts,
caused that woman to be brought again, and her clothes
pulled up to her thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin
into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and
the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of
the devil.
If this precious wretch had not been stopped he would have declared
half the women in the north country to be witches. But the magistrates
and the people got tired of him at last, and his imposture being
discovered, he was hanged in Scotland. At the gallows he confessed
that he had been the death of 220 men and women in England and
Scotland, simply for the sake of the twenty shillings which he
generally received as blood-money.
* * * * *
The belief in _Sorcerots_, or witches' spells of a peculiar kind,
mentioned in the _Depositions_ (pages 22, 23, &c.) receives curious
modern confirmation by a kindred superstition still current among the
emancipated negroes of the United States. It was described in a letter
on "Voudouism in Virginia" which appeared in the _New York Tribune_,
dated Richmond, September 17, 1875. Mr. Moncure D. Conway, in quoting
this and commenting on it in his _Demonology and Devil-Lore_ (Vol. I.
pages 68-69), says that it belongs to a class of superstitions
generally kept close from the whites, as he believes, because of their
purely African origin. Mr. Conway is, however, probably mistaken about
the origin, seeing that the same belief prevailed in Guernsey three
centuries ago. The extract from the letter is as follows:--
If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he
cannot comprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of
witchcraft, and having no faith in "white folks' physic" for
such ailments, must apply to one of these quacks. A
physician residing near the city [Richmond] was invited by
such a one to witness his mode of procedure with a dropsical
patient for whom the physician in question had occasionally
charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the
seance, having previously informed the quack that since the
case was in such hands he relinquished all connection with
it. On the coverlet of the bed on which the sick man lay,
was spread a quantity of bones, feathers, and other trash.
The charlatan went through with a series of so-called
conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of
wood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the
physician's comprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the
pillows and bolsters, and took from them some queer
conglomerations of feathers. These he said had caused all
the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them, he burnt
them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced,
and he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was
destroyed, and that the patient would surely get well. He
died not many days later, believing, in common with his
friends and relatives, that the conjurations of the "trick
doctor" had failed to save him only because resorted to too
late.
From the above it is evident that the natural tendency of wool and
feathers to felt and clog together, has been distorted, by widely
different peoples, into an outward and visible sign that occult and
malignant influences were at work.
* * * * *
As to the manner in which wizards and witches were put to the question
in Guernsey--that is tortured until they confessed whatever was
required of them--Mr. Warburton, a herald and celebrated antiquary who
wrote in the reign of Charles II., has given a circumstancial account,
the correctness of which may be relied on. His _Treatise on the
History, Laws and Customs of the Island of Guernsey_, bears the date
of 1682, and at page 126 he says:--
By the law approved (_Terrien_, Lib. xii. cap. 37), torture
is to be used, though not upon slight presumption, yet where
the presumptive proof is strong, and much more when the
proof is positive, and there wants only the confession of
the party accused. Yet this practice of torturing does not
appear to have been used in the island for some ages, except
in the case of witches, when it was too frequently applied,
near a century since. The custom then was, when any person
was supposed guilty of sorcery or witchcraft, they carried
them to a place in the town called _La Tour Beauregard_, and
there, tying their hands behind them by the two thumbs, drew
them to a certain height with an engine made for that
purpose, by which means sometimes their shoulders were
turned round; and sometimes their thumbs torn off; but this
fancy of witches has for some years been laid aside.
It will be noticed in the subsequent _Confessions_ of witches (page
11, &c.), that a number of colons (:) are inserted in the text where
they would not be required as ordinary marks of punctuation. These
correspond, however, to similar pauses in the original records, and
evidently indicate the successive stages by which the story was wrung
from the wretched victims. They are thus endowed with a sad and
ghastly significance, which must be borne in mind when the confessions
are read. It must also be remembered that these confessions were not
usually made in the connected form in which they stand recorded, but
were rather the result of leading questions put by the inquisitors,
such as: How old were you when the Devil first appeared to you? What
form did he assume? What parish were you in? What were you doing? &c.,
&c.
Melancholy and revolting as all this is, yet the tortures made use of
in Guernsey were far from possessing those refinements of cruelty and
that intensity of brutality which characterised the methods practiced
in some other countries. Let us take as a proof of this, the notable
case of Dr. Fian and his associates, who were tried at Edinburgh, in
the year 1591. The evidence was of the usual ridiculous kind, and a
confession--afterwards withdrawn--was extorted by the following
blood-curdling barbarities, as is quoted by Mr. C.K. Sharpe, in his
_Historical Account of the Belief in Witchcraft in Scotland_:--
The said Doctor was taken and imprisoned, and used with the
accustomed paine provided for those offences inflicted upon
the rest, as is aforesaid. First, by thrawing of his head
with a rope, whereat he would confesse nothing. Secondly, he
was perswaded by faire meanes to confesse his follies; but
that would prevaile as little. Lastly, hee was put to the
most severe and cruell paine in the world, called the
bootes, who, after he had received three strokes, being
inquired if he would confesse his damnable actes and wicked
life, his toong would not serve him to speak; in respect
whereof, the rest of the witches willed to search his toong,
under which was founde two pinnes thrust up into the heade,
whereupon the witches did say, now is the charme stinted,
and shewed that these charmed pins were the cause he could
not confesse any thing; then was he immediately released of
the bootes, brought before the King, his confession was
taken, and his own hand willingly set thereunto.... But this
Doctor, notwithstanding that his owne confession appeareth
remaining in recorde under his owne hande-writing, and the
same thereunto fixed in the presence of the King's majestie,
and sundrie of his councell, yet did he utterly denie the
same. Whereupon the Kinges majestie, perceiving his
stubbourne wilfulnesse, conceived and imagined that in the
time of his absence hee had entered into newe conference and
league with the devill, his master, and that hee had beene
agayne newly marked, for the which he was narrowly searched;
but it coulde not in anie wice be founde; yet, for more
tryall of him to make him confesse, hee was commaunded to
have a most straunge torment, which was done in this manner
following: His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and
pulled off with an instrument called in Scottish a turkas,
which in England wee call a payre of pincers, and under
everie nayle there was thrust in two needles over, even up
to the heads; at all which tormentes notwithstanding the
Doctor never shronke anie whit, neither woulde he then
confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon
him. Then was hee, with all convenient speed, by
commandement, convaied againe to the torment of the bootes,
wherein he continued a long time, and did abide so many
blowes in them, that the legges were crusht and beaten
together as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so
bruised that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great
abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever;
and notwithstanding all those grievous paines and cruell
torments, hee would not confess anie thing; so deeply had
the devill entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied
all that which he had before avouched, and would saie
nothing thereunto but this, that what he had done and sayde
before, was onely done and sayde for fear of paynes which he
had endured. After this horrible treatment the wretched man
was strangled and burnt.
The following list gives a few--and only a few--of the direful results
to which this widespread superstition led. The instances are chiefly
taken from Dr. Réville's _History of the Devil_, and Haydn's
well-known _Dictionary of Dates_:--
At Toulouse a noble lady, fifty-six years of age, named
Angela de Labarète, was the first who was burnt as a
sorceress, in which special quality she formed part of the
great _auto-da-fé_ which took place in that city in the year
1275; at Carcasonne, from 1320 to 1350, more than four
hundred executions for witchcraft are on record; in 1309
many Templars were burnt at Paris for witchcraft; Joan of
Arc was burnt as a witch at Rouen, May 30th, 1431; in 1484
Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull against witchcraft,
causing persecutions to break out in all parts of
Christendom; during three months of the year 1515, about
five hundred witches were burnt at Geneva; in 1524 many
persons were burnt for the same crime in the Diocese of
Como; about the year 1520 a great number suffered in France,
and one sorcercer confessed to having 1,200 associates; from
1580 to 1595--a period of fifteen years--about nine hundred
witches were burnt in Lorraine; between 1627 and 1629, no
fewer than one hundred and fifty-seven persons, old and
young, and of all ranks, were burnt at Wurtzburg, in
Bavaria; in 1634 a clerk named Urbain Grandier, who was
parish priest at Loudon, was burnt on a charge of having
bewitched a whole convent of Ursuline nuns; in 1654 twenty
poor women were put to death as witches in Brittany; in
1648-9 serious disturbances on account of witchcraft took
place in Massachusetts; and in 1683 dreadful persecutions
raged in Pennsylvania from the same cause; in 1692, at
Salem, in New England, nineteen persons were hanged by the
Puritans for witchcraft, and eight more were condemned,
while fifty others confessed themselves to be witches, and
were pardoned; in 1657 the witch-judge Nicholas Remy boasted
of having burnt nine hundred persons in fifteen years; in
one German principality alone, at least two hundred and
forty-two persons were burnt between 1646 and 1651,
including many children from one to six years of age; in
1749 Maria Renata was burnt at Wurtzburg for witchcraft; on
January 17th, 1775, nine old women were burnt at Kalish, in
Poland, on a charge of having bewitched and rendered
unfruitful the lands belonging to the palatinate; at
Landshut, in Bavaria, in 1756, a young girl of thirteen
years was convicted of impure intercourse with the Devil and
put to death. There were also executions for sorcery at
Seville, in Spain, in 1781, and at Glarus, in Switzerland,
in 1783; while even as late as December 15th, 1802, five
women were condemned to death for sorcery at Patna, in the
Bengal Presidency, by the Brahmins, and were all executed.
IN ENGLAND the record of Witchcraft is also a
melancholy chapter. A statute was enacted declaring all
witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of
clergy, 33 Henry VIII. 1541; and again 5 Elizabeth, 1562,
and 1 James I. 1603. The 73rd Canon of the Church, 1603,
prohibits the Clergy from casting out devils. Barrington
estimates the judicial murders for witchcraft in England,
during two hundred years, at 30,000; Matthew Hopkins, the
"witch-finder," caused the judicial murder of about one
hundred persons in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, 1645-7; Sir
Matthew Hale burnt two persons for witchcraft in 1664; about
1676 seventeen or eighteen persons were burnt as witches at
St. Osyths, in Essex; in 1705 two pretended witches were
executed at Northampton, and five others seven years
afterwards; in 1716, a Mrs. Hicks, and her daughter, a
little girl of nine years old, are said to have been hanged
as witches at Huntingdon, but of this there seems to be some
doubt. The last really authentic trial in England for
witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an
old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village
in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be
hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for
her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave
her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace.
With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is
recorded that in the year 1628, Dr. Lamb, a so-called
wizard, who had been under the protection of the Duke of
Buckingham, was torn to pieces by a London mob. While even
as late as April 22nd, 1751, a wild and tossing rabble of
about 5,000 persons beset and broke into the work-house at
Tring, in Hertfordshire, where seizing Luke Osborne and his
wife, two inoffensive old people suspected of witchcraft,
they ducked them in a pond till the old woman died. After
which, her corpse was put to bed to her husband by the mob,
of whom only one person--a chimney-sweeper named Colley, who
was the ringleader--was brought to trial and hanged for the
detestable outrage.
The laws against witchcraft in England had lain dormant for
many years, when an ignorant person attempted to revive them
by filing a bill against a poor old woman in Surrey, accused
as a witch; this led to the repeal of the laws by the
statute 10 George II. 1736. Credulity in witchcraft,
however, still lingers in some of the country districts of
the United Kingdom. On September 4th, 1863, a poor old
paralysed Frenchman died in consequence of having been
ducked as a wizard at Castle Hedingham, in Essex, and
similar cases have since occurred; while on September 17th,
1875,--only ten years ago--an old woman named Ann Turner,
was killed as a witch, by a half-insane man, at Long
Compton, Warwickshire.
IN SCOTLAND, thousands of persons were burnt for
witchcraft within a period of about a hundred years, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among the victims were
persons of the highest rank, while all orders of the state
concurred. James I. even caused a whole assize to be
prosecuted because of an acquittal; the king published his
work on _Dæmonologie_, in Edinburgh, in 1597; the last
sufferer for witchcraft in Scotland was at Dornoch, in 1722.
CONFESSIONS OF WITCHES UNDER TORTURE.
_LE 4 JUILLET 1617._
Devant AMICE DE CARTERET, Ecuyer, Baillif, présents, etc.
SENTENCE DE MORT.
_Collette Du Mont_, veuve de _Jean Becquet_, _Marie_, sa fille, femme
de _Pierre Massy_, _Isbel Bequet_, femme de _Jean Le Moygne_, etant
par la coutume renommée et bruit des gens de longue main du bruit de
damnable art de Sorcellerie, et icelles sur ce saisies et apprehendées
par les Officiers de Sa Majesté, apres s'etre volontairement sumis et
sur l'enquete generale du pays, et apres avoir été plusieurs fois
conduites en Justice, ouïes, examinées et confrontées sur un grand
nombre de depositions faites et produites à l'encontre d'elles par les
dits Officiers, par lesquels est clair et evident qu'auraient, par
longeur d'années, le susdit diabolique art de Sorcellerie, par avoir
non seulement jété leur sort sur des choses insensible, mais aussi
tenu en langueur par maladies etranges plusieurs personnes et betes,
et aussi cruellement meurti grand nombre d'hommes, femmes, et enfans,
et fait mourir plusieurs animaux, recordés aux informations sur ce
faites, s'ensuit qu'elles sont plainement convaincues et atteintes
d'etre Sorcieres. Pour reparation duquel crime a eté dit par la Cour
que lesdites femmes seront presentement conduites la halte au col au
lieu de supplice accoutumé, et par l'Officier criminel attachées à un
poteau, pendues, etranglées, osciées, et brulées, jusqu'à ce que leur
chairs et ossements soient reduits en cendres, et leurs cendres
eparcées; et sont tous les biens, meubles, et heritages, si aucun en
ont acquit, à Sa Majesté. Pour leur faire confesser leurs complices,
qu'elles seront mises à la question en Justice avant que d'etre
executées.
[TRANSLATION.]
Before AMICE DE CARTERET, Esq., Bailiff, and the Jurats.
_JULY 4th, 1617._
SENTENCE OF DEATH.
_Collette du Mont_, widow of _Jean Becquet_; _Marie_, her daughter,
wife of _Pierre Massy_; and _Isabel Becquet_, wife of _Jean Le
Moygne_, being by common rumour and report for a long time past
addicted to the damnable art of Witchcraft, and the same being
thereupon seized and apprehended by the Officers of His Majesty [James
I.], after voluntarily submitting themselves, both upon the general
inquest of the country, and after having been several times brought up
before the Court, heard, examined, and confronted, upon a great number
of depositions made and produced before the Court by the said
Officers; from which it is clear and evident that for many years past
the aforesaid women have practiced the diabolical art of Witchcraft,
by having not only cast their spells upon inanimate objects, but also
by having retained in languor through strange diseases, many persons
and beasts; and also cruelly hurt a great number of men, women, and
children, and caused the death of many animals, as recorded in the
informations thereupon laid, it follows that they are clearly
convicted and proved to be Witches. In expiation of which crime it has
been ordered by the Court that the said women shall be presently
conducted, with halters about their necks, to the usual place of
punishment, and shall there be fastened by the Executioner to a
gallows, and be hanged, strangled, killed, and burnt, until their
flesh and bones are reduced to ashes, and the ashes shall be
scattered; and all their goods, chattels, and estates, if any such
exist, shall be forfeited to His Majesty. In order to make them
disclose their accomplices, they shall be put to the question before
the Court, previous to being executed.
Sentence de mort ayant esté prononcée à l'encontre de _Collette Du
Mont_, veuve de _Jean Becquet_, _Marie_, sa fille, femme de _Pierre
Massy_, et _Isbel Becquet_, femme de _Jean Le Moygne_, auroyent
icelles confessé comme suit:--
CONFESSION DE COLLETTE DU MONT.
Premier, la diste _Collette_ immediatement appres la dyte sentence
donnée, et avant que de sortir de l'auditoire, a librement recognu
qu'elle estoit Sorciere; toutesfois ne voulant particularizer les
crimes qu'auroit commis a esté conduite avec les autres en la Maison
de la Question, et la dite question luy estant applicquée, a confessé
qu'elle estoit encore jeune lors que le Diable en forme de chat:
s'aparut à elle: en la Paroisse de Torteval: lors qu'elle retournoit
de son bestiall, estant encore jour, et qu'il print occasion de la
seduire, par l'inciter à se venger d'un de ses voisins avec lequell
elle estoit pour lors en querelle pour quelque domage qu'elle auroit
receu par les bestes d'yceluy; que depuis lors qu'elle avoit eu
querelle avec quelcun, ill se representoit à elle en la susdite forme:
et quelquefois en forme de chien: l'induisant à se venger de ceux
contre lesquels elle estoit faschée: la persuadant de faire mourir des
personnes et bestes.
Que le Diable l'estant venue querir pour aller au Sabat, l'appelloit
sans qu'on s'en apperceust: et luy bailloit ung certain onguent noir,
duquel (appres s'etre despouillée) elle se frotoit le dos, ventre et
estomac: et s'estant revestuë, sortoit hors son huis, lors estoit
incontinent emportée par l'air d'une grande vitesse: et se trouvoit a
l'instant au lieu du Sabat, qui estoit quelquefois pres le cimetiere
de la paroisse: et quelques autres fois pres le rivage de la mer, aux
environs du Chateau de Rocquaine: là où estant arivée s'y rencontroit
souvent quinze ou saize Sorciers et Sorcieres avec les Diables, qu'y
estoient là en forme de chiens, chats, et lievres: lesquels Sorciers
et Sorcieres elle n'a peu recognoistre, parce qu'ils estoyent tous
noircis et deffigurés: bien est vray avoir ouy le Diable les evocquer
par leur noms, et se souvaient entre autres de la _Fallaise_, et de la
_Hardie_; dit confesse qu'a l'entrée du Sabath: le Diable les voulant
esvosquer commencoit par elle quelquefois. Que sa fille _Marie_, femme
de _Massy_, à present condamnée pour pareill crime, est Sorciere: et
qu'elle la menée par deux fois au Sabath avec elle: ne scait par où le
Diable la merchée: qu'au Sabath appres avoir adoré le Diable, lequell
se tenoit debout sur ses pieds de derriere, ils avoient copulation
avec luy en forme de chien; puis dansoyent dos a dos. Et appres avoir
dansé, beuvoyent du vin (ne scait de quelle couleur), que le Diable
versoit hors d'un pot en ung gobelet d'argent ou d'estrain; lequell
vin ne luy sembloit sy bon que celuy qu'on boit ordinarement;
mangeoist aussy du pain blanc quj leur presentoit--n'a jamais veu de
sell au Sabath.
Confesse que le Diable luy avoit donné charge d'appeler en passant
_Isebell le Moygne_: lors quelle viendroit au Sabath, ce qu'elle a
fait diverses fois. Qu'au partir du Sabath le Diable l'incitoit à
perpetrer plusieurs maux: et pour cest effect luy bailloit certaines
pouldres noires, qu'il lui commandoit de ietter sur telles personnes
et bestes qu'elle voudroit; avec laquelle pouldre elle a perpetré
plusieurs maux desquels ne se souvient: entres autres en ietta sur
_Mes. Dolbell_, ministre de la paroisse: et fut occasion de sa mort
par ce moyen. Par ceste mesme pouldre ensorcela la femme de _Jean
Maugues_: toutesfois nie qu'elle soit morte par son sort: qu'elle
toucha par le costé, et ietta de ceste pouldre sur la femme defuncte
de _Mr Perchard_, successeur ministre du dit _Dolbell_, en ycelle
paroisse, ycelle estant pour lors enceinte, tellement qu'elle la fist
mourir et son fruit--ne scait quelle occasion luy fut donnée par la
dite femme.
Que sur le refus que la femme de _Collas Tottevin_ luy fist de luy
donner du laict: elle fist assecher sa vache, en iettant sur ycelle de
ceste pouldre: laquelle vache elle regarit par appres en luy faisant
manger du son, et de l'herbe terrestre que le Diable lui bailla.
Sentence of Death having been pronounced against _Collette Du Mont_,
widow of _Jean Becquet_; _Marie_, her daughter, wife of _Pierre
Massy_; and _Isabel Becquet_, wife of _Jean Le Moygne_; the same have
confessed as follows:--
CONFESSION OF COLLETTE DU MONT.
First, the said _Collette_ immediately after the said sentence was
pronounced, and before leaving the Court, freely admitted that she was
a Witch; at the same time, not wishing to specify the crimes which she
had committed, she was taken, along with the others, to the Torture
Chamber, and the said question being applied to her, she confessed
that she was quite young when the Devil, in the form of a cat:
appeared to her: in the Parish of Torteval: as she was returning from
her cattle, it being still daylight, and that he took occasion to lead
her astray by inciting her to avenge herself on one of her neighbours,
with whom she was then at enmity, on account of some damage which she
had suffered through the cattle of the latter; that since then when
she had a quarrel with anyone, he appeared to her in the aforesaid
form: and sometimes in the form of a dog: inducing her to take
vengence upon those who had angered her: persuading her to cause the
death of persons and cattle.
That the Devil having come to fetch her that she might go to the
Sabbath, called for her without anyone perceiving it: and gave her a
certain black ointment with which (after having stripped herself), she
rubbed her back, belly and stomach: and then having again put on her
clothes, she went out of her door, when she was immediately carried
through the air at a great speed: and she found herself in an instant
at the place of the Sabbath, which was sometimes near the parochial
burial-ground: and at other times near the seashore in the
neighbourhood of Rocquaine Castle: where, upon arrival, she met often
fifteen or sixteen Wizards and Witches with the Devils who were there
in the form of dogs, cats, and hares: which Wizards and Witches she
was unable to recognise, because they were all blackened and
disfigured: it was true, however, that she had heard the Devil summon
them by their names, and she remembered among others those of
_Fallaise_ and _Hardie_; confessed that on entering the Sabbath: the
Devil wishing to summon them commenced with her sometimes. Admitted
that her daughter _Marie_, wife of _Massy_, now condemned for a
similar crime, was a Witch: and that she took her twice to the Sabbath
with her: at the Sabbath, after having worshipped the Devil, who used
to stand up on his hind legs, they had connection with him under the
form of a dog; then they danced back to back. And after having danced,
they drank wine (she did not know what colour it was), which the Devil
poured out of a jug into a silver or pewter goblet; which wine did not
seem to her so good as that which was usually drunk; they also ate
white bread which he presented to them--she had never seen any salt at
the Sabbath.
Confessed that the Devil had charged her to call, as she passed, for
_Isabel le Moygne_: when she came to the Sabbath, which she had done
several times. On leaving the Sabbath the Devil incited her to commit
various evil deeds: and to that effect he gave her certain black
powders, which he ordered her to throw upon such persons and cattle as
she wished; with this powder she perpetrated several wicked acts which
she did not remember: among others she threw some upon _Mr Dolbell_,
parish minister: and was the occasion of his death by these means.
With this same powder she bewitched the wife of _Jean Maugues_: but
denied that the woman's death was caused by it: she also touched on
the side, and threw some of this powder over the deceased wife of _Mr
Perchard_, the minister who succeeded the said _Dolbell_ in the
parish, she being _enceinte_ at the time, and so caused the death of
her and her infant--she did not know that the deceased woman had given
her any cause for doing so.
Upon the refusal of the wife of _Collas Tottevin_ to give her some
milk: she caused her cow to dry up, by throwing upon it some of this
powder: which cow she afterwards cured again by making it eat some
bran, and some terrestrial herb that the Devil gave her.
CONFESSION DE MARIE BECQUET.
_Marie_, femme de _Pierre Massy_, appres sentence de mort prononcée a
l'encontre d'elle, ayant esté mise a la question, a confessé qu'elle
est Sorciere; et qu'à la persuation du Diable, quj s'aparut à elle en
forme de chien: elle se donna à luy: que lors que se donna à luy ill
la print de sa patte par la main: qu'elle s'est oint du mesme onguent
que sa mere s'oignoit: et a esté au Sabath sur la banque pres du
Chateau de Rocquaine, avec luy, où n'y avoit que le Diable et elle, se
luy sembloit: en la susdite forme en laquelle elle la veu plusieurs
fois. A été aussi au Sabath une fois entre autres en la ruë, _Collas
Tottevin_; que toutes les fois qu'elle alloit au Sabath le Diable la
venant querir luy sembloit qu'il la transformait en chienne; dit que
sur le rivage, pres du dit Rocquaine: le Diable, en forme de chien,
ayant eu copulation avec elle, luy donnoit du pain et du vin, qu'elle
mangeoit et beuvoit.