THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND.
The honour of discouraging prosecutions for witchcraft belongs in the
first place to France, which abolished them as early as 1672, and for
some years previously had refrained from sending any victims to the
scaffold or the stake. In England, the same effect was partly due,
perhaps, to the cynical humour of the Court of Charles II., where
many, who before ventured only to doubt, no longer hesitated to treat
the subject with ridicule. 'Although,' says Mr. Wright, 'works like
those of Baxter and Glanvil had still their weight with many people,
yet in the controversy which was now carried on through the
instrumentality of the press, those who wrote against the popular
creed had certainly the best of the argument. Still, it happened from
their form and character that the books written to expose the
absurdity of the belief in sorcery were restricted in their
circulation to the more educated classes, while popular tracts in
defence of witchcraft and collections of cases were printed in a
cheaper form, and widely distributed among that class in society where
the belief was most firmly rooted. The effect of these popular
publications has continued in some districts down to the present day.
Thus the press, the natural tendency of which was to enlighten
mankind, was made to increase ignorance by pandering to the credulity
of the multitude.'
I have spoken of the seventeenth century as going out in an atmosphere
of justice and humanity. But an ancient superstition dies hard, and
the eighteenth century, when it dawned upon the earth, found the
belief in witchcraft still widely extended in England. Even men of
education could not wholly surrender their adhesion to it. We read
with surprise Addison's opinion in _The Spectator_, 'that the
arguments press equally on both sides,' and see him balancing himself
between the two aspects of the subject in a curious state of mental
indecision. 'When I hear the relations that are made from all parts of
the world,' he says, 'I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an
intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, as that which we express
by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider,' he adds, 'that the
ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these
relations, and that the persons among us who are supposed to engage in
such an infernal commerce are people of a weak understanding and
crazed imagination, and at the same time reflect upon the many
impostures and delusions of this nature that have been detected in all
ages, I endeavour to suspend my belief till I hear more certain
accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge.' And then he
comes to a halting and unsatisfactory conclusion, which will seem
almost grotesque to the reader of the preceding pages, with their
details of _succubi_ and _incubi_, imps and familiars, black cats,
pole-cats, goats, and the like: 'In short, when I consider the
question, whether there are such persons in the world as we call
witches, my mind is divided between two opposite opinions, or, rather
(to speak my thoughts freely), I believe in general that there is, and
has been, such a thing as witchcraft, but, at the same time, can give
no credit to any particular instance of it.'
Addison goes on to draw the picture of a witch of the period, 'Moll
White,' who lived in the neighbourhood of Sir Roger de Coverley, 'a
wrinkled hag, with age grown double.' This old woman had the
reputation of a witch all over the country; her lips were observed to
be always in motion, and there was not a switch about her house which
her neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of
miles. 'If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws
that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake
at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to
conclude that she was saying her prayers backwards. There was not a
maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should
offer a bag of money with it.... If the dairy-maid does not make her
butter to come so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the
bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has
been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the
hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White....
'I have been the more particular in this account,' says Addison,
'because I know there is scarce a village in England that has not a
Moll White in it. When an old woman begins to dote, and grow
chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, and
fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imaginary
distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the meantime, the poor wretch
that is the innocent occasion of so many evils begins to be frighted
at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerces and familiarities
that her imagination forms in a delirious old age. This frequently
cuts off charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and inspires
people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit parts of our
species in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotage.'
* * * * *
On March 2, 1703, one Richard Hathaway, apprentice to Thomas Wiling, a
blacksmith in Southwark, was tried before Chief Justice Holt at the
Surrey Assizes, as a cheat and an impostor, having pretended that he
had been bewitched by Sarah Morduck, wife of a Thames waterman, so
that he had been unable to eat or drink for the space of ten weeks
together; had suffered various pains; had constantly vomited nails and
crooked pins; had at times been deprived of speech and sight, and all
through the wicked cunning of Sarah Morduck; further, that he was from
time to time relieved of his ailments by scratching the said Sarah,
and drawing blood from her. On these charges Sarah had been committed
by the magistrates, and was tried as a witch at the Guildford Assizes
in February, 1701. It was then proved in her defence that Dr. Martin,
minister, of the parish of Southwark, hearing of Hathaway's troubles
and method of obtaining relief, had resolved to put the matter to a
fair test; and repairing to Hathaway's room, in one of his
semi-conscious and wholly blind intervals, had, in the presence of
many witnesses, pretended to give to the supposed sufferer the arm of
Sarah Morduck, when it was really that of a woman whom he had called
in from the street. Hathaway, in ignorance of the trick played upon
him, scratched the wrong arm, and immediately professed to recover his
sight and senses. On finding his deception discovered, Hathaway looked
greatly ashamed, and attempted no defence or excuse, when Dr. Martin
severely reproached him for his conduct.
The populace, however, remained unconvinced, and when Dr. Martin and
his friends had departed, accompanied Hathaway to the house of Sarah
Morduck, whom they savagely ill-treated. They then declared that the
woman who had lent herself as a subject for experiment was also a
witch, and loaded her with contumely, while her husband gave her a
beating. It further appeared that, on one occasion, when Hathaway
alleged he had been vomiting crooked pins and nails, he had been
searched, and hundreds of packets of pins and nails found in his
pockets, and on his hands being tied behind him, the vomiting
immediately ceased. Eventually the jury acquitted Sarah Morduck, and
branded Hathaway as a cheat and an impostor. The lower classes,
however, received the verdict with contempt, mobbed Dr. Martin, and
raised a collection for Hathaway as for a man of many virtues whom
fortune had ill-treated. A magistrate, Sir Thomas Lane, who sided with
the mob, summoned Sarah Morduck before him, and after she had been
scratched by Hathaway in his presence, ordered her to be examined for
devil-marks by two women and a doctor. Though none could be detected,
his prejudice was so extreme that he committed her as a witch to the
Wood Street Compter, refusing bail to the extent of £500. Dr. Martin,
with other gentlemen, again came to her assistance, and ultimately she
was released on reasonable surety.
The Government now thought it time to support the cause of justice,
and, carrying out the verdict of the Guildford jury, indicted Hathaway
as a cheat, and himself and his friends for assaulting Sarah Morduck.
In addition to the evidence previously adduced, it was shown that,
being in bad health, he had been placed in the custody of a Dr. Kenny,
a surgeon, who, desiring to test the truth of his fasting, made holes
in the partition wall of his compartment, and watched his proceedings
for about a fortnight, during which period, while pretending to fast,
he was observed to feed heartily on the food conveyed to him, and
once, having received an extra allowance of whisky, he got tipsy,
played a tune on the tongs, and danced before the fire. At the trial a
Dr. Hamilton was called for the defence; but, Balaam-like, he banned
rather than blessed, for having affirmed that the man's fasting was
the chief evidence of witchcraft, 'Doctor,' said the Chief Justice,
'do you think it possible for a man to fast a fortnight?' 'I think
not,' he replied. 'Can all the devils in hell help a man to fast so
long?' 'No, my lord,' said the doctor; 'I think not.' These answers
were conclusive; and without leaving the box, the jury found Hathaway
guilty, and he was sentenced by Chief Justice Holt to pay a fine of
one hundred marks, to stand in the pillory on the following Sunday for
two hours at Southwark, the same on the Tuesday at the Royal Exchange,
the same on the Wednesday at Temple Bar, the next day to be whipped at
the House of Correction, and afterwards to be imprisoned with hard
labour for six months.
Two reputed witches, Eleanor Shaw and Mary Phillips, were executed at
Northampton on March 17, 1705; and on July 22, 1712, five
Northamptonshire witches, Agnes Brown, Helen Jenkinson, A...... Bill,
Joan Vaughan, and Mary Barber, suffered at the same place.
It is generally believed that the last time an English jury brought in
a verdict of guilty in a case of witchcraft was in 1712, when a poor
Hertfordshire peasant woman, named Jane Wenham, was tried before Mr.
Justice Powell, sixteen witnesses, including three clergymen,
supporting the accusation. The evidence was absurd and frivolous; but,
in spite of its frivolousness and absurdity, and the poor woman's
fervent protestations of innocence, and the judge's strong summing-up
in her favour, a Hertfordshire jury convicted her. The judge was
compelled by the law to pronounce sentence of death, but he lost no
time in obtaining from the Queen a pardon for the unfortunate woman.
But, on emerging from her prison, she was treated by the mob with
savage ferocity; and, to save her from being lynched, Colonel Plumer,
of Gilson, took her into his service, in which she continued for many
years, earning and preserving the esteem of all who knew her.
But there is a record of an execution for witchcraft, that of Mary
Hicks and her daughter, taking place in 1716 (July 28); and though it
is not indubitably established, I do not think its authenticity can
well be doubted.
In January, 1736, an old woman of Frome, reputed to be a witch, was
dragged from her sick-bed, put astride on a saddle, and kept in a
mill-pond for nearly an hour, in the presence of upwards of 200
people. The story goes that she swam like a cork, but on being taken
out of the water expired immediately. A coroner's inquest was held on
the body, and three persons were committed for trial for manslaughter;
but it is probable that they escaped punishment, as nobody seems to
have been willing to appear in the witness-box against them.
Among the vulgar, indeed, the superstition was hard to kill. In the
middle of the last century, a poor man and his wife, of the name of
Osborne, each about seventy years of age, lived at Tring, in
Hertfordshire. On one occasion, Mother Osborne, as she was commonly
called, went to a dairyman, appropriately named Butterfield, and asked
for some buttermilk; but was harshly repulsed, and informed that he
had scarcely enough for his hogs. The woman replied with asperity that
the Pretender (it was in the '45 that this took place) would soon have
him and his hogs. It was customary then to connect the Pretender and
the devil in one's thoughts and aspirations; and the ignorant rustics
soon afterwards, when Butterfield's calves sickened, declared that
Mother Osborne had bewitched them, with the assistance of the devil.
Later, when Butterfield, who had given up his farm and taken to an
ale-house, suffered much from fits, Mother Osborne was again declared
to be the cause (1751), and he was advised to send to Northamptonshire
for an old woman, a white witch, to baffle her spells. The white witch
came, confirmed, of course, the popular prejudice, and advised that
six men, armed with staves and pitchforks, should watch Butterfield's
house by day and night. The affair would here, perhaps, have ended;
but some persons thought they could turn it to their pecuniary
advantage, and, accordingly, made public notification that a witch
would be ducked on April 22. On the appointed day hundreds flocked to
the scene of entertainment. The parish officers had removed the two
Osbornes for safety to the church; and the mob, in revenge, seized the
governor of the workhouse, and, collecting a heap of straw, threatened
to drown him, and set fire to the town, unless they were given up. In
a panic of fear the parish officers gave way, and the two poor
creatures were immediately stripped naked, their thumbs tied to their
toes, and, each being wrapped in a coarse sheet, were dragged a
couple of miles, and then flung into a muddy stream. Colley, a
chimney-sweep, observing that the woman did not sink, stepped into the
pool, and turned her over several times with a stick, until the sheet
fell off, and her nakedness was exposed. In this miserable
state--exhausted with fatigue and terror, sick with shame, half choked
with mud--she was flung upon the bank; and her persecutors--alas for
the cruelty of ignorance!--kicked and beat her until she died. Her
husband also sank under his barbarous maltreatment. It is satisfactory
to know that Colley, as the worst offender, was brought to trial on a
charge of wilful murder, found guilty, and most righteously hanged.
The crowd, however, who witnessed his execution, lamented him as a
martyr, unjustly punished for having delivered the world from one of
Satan's servants, and overwhelmed with execrations the sheriff whose
duty it was to see that the behests of the law were carried out.
In February, 1759, Susannah Hannaker, of Wingrove, Wilts, was put to
the ordeal of weighing, but fortunately for herself outweighed the
church Bible, against which she was tested. In June, 1760, at
Leicester; in June, 1785, at Northampton; and in April, 1829, at
Monmouth, persons were tried for ducking supposed witches. Similar
cases have occurred in our own time. On September 4, 1863, a paralytic
Frenchman died of an illness induced by his having been ducked as a
wizard in a pond at Castle Hedingham, in Essex. And an aged woman,
named Anne Turner, reputed to be a witch, was killed by a man,
partially insane, at the village of Long Compton, in Warwickshire, on
September 17, 1875. But the reader needs no further illustrations of
the longevity of human error, or the terrible vitality of prejudice,
especially among the uneducated. The thaumaturgist or necromancer,
with his wand, his magic circle, his alembics and crucibles,
disappeared long ago, because, as I have already pointed out, his
support depended upon a class of society whose intelligence was
rapidly developed by the healthy influences of literature and science;
but the sham astrologer and the pseudo-witch linger still in obscure
corners, because they find their prey among the credulous and the
ignorant. The more widely we extend the bounds of knowledge, the more
certainly shall we prevent the recrudescence of such forms of
imposture and aspects of delusion as in the preceding pages I have
attempted to describe.