It was in this same year that Agnes Brigs and Rachel Pindar had to do
penance at St. Paul's Cross, in London,[99] having been convicted of cheat
and imposture in pretending to vomit pins and straws and old "clouts," and
other such impossibilities; and for counterfeiting possession by the
Devil, which the philosophers of the time thought was no subject to trifle
with, or affect in any manner whatsoever. And then, a few years later, a
young Dutchman living at Maidstone was dispossessed of ten devils, and the
mayor of the town got to subscribe his name to the account, which turned
out afterwards to be nothing but fraud and lies. In 1579[100] four
witches were hung up together, the chief accusation against one of them,
Mother Still, being, "that she did kill one Saddocke with a touch on the
shoulder, for not keeping promise with her for an old cloak, to make her a
safeguard; and that she was hanged for her labour:" and another, Ellein
Smith, was executed at Maldon,[101] on the testimony of her little son of
eight, who accused her of having three spirits--Great Dick in a wicker
bottle, Little Dick in a leathern bottle, and Willet kept in a woolpack.
Upon which the house was commanded to be searched, and "the bottles and
packe were found, but the spirites were banished awaie."
At the Rochester assizes, held 1591, Margaret Simons,[102] the wife of
John Simons, of Brenchley in Kent, was arraigned for witchcraft, on the
charge of bewitching the son of John Ferrall the vicar. An ill-conditioned
young cub was he, and prentice to Robert Scotchford, clothier; and the
father himself seems to have been little better than his son--making a bad
pair between them for the teacher and "pattern child" of Brenchley. There
had long been ill blood between Mr. John Ferrall, vicar, and Margaret
Simons; and one day it came somewhat to a head; for, when the boy was
passing Margaret's house on his way home, her little dog jumped out at him
and barked. "Which thing the boy taking in evil part," says Reginald
Scot, in his quaint, blunt, incisive way, "drew his knife, and pursued him
therewith even to her door; whom she rebuked with some such words as the
boy disclaimed, and yet neverthelesse would not be perswaded to depart in
a long time." The consequence of the fray was, that the boy in five or six
days' time fell dangerously ill. Then the vicar, "who thought himself so
privileged as he little mistrusted that God would visit his children with
sicknesse," declared that his son was bewitched by Margaret Simons, who
also had done the like evil to himself; for whenever he wished to read the
service with special emphasis and care his voice always failed him, so
that his congregation could scarce hear him at all. Margaret made answer
that his voice was always hoarse and low, and particularly when he
strained himself to speak loudest then it ever failed him: but there was
no witchcraft in the case, for all that Mr. Ferrall had procured the
health of his son at the hands of another witch, who had taken off the
charm and effected a perfect cure. Margaret had a very narrow escape for
her life. The whole of the jury, save one man, were against her, but she
had in her favour the fact that the vicar was very unpopular, and, justly
or unjustly, lay under some odious charges; so, what with the sane
juryman's exertions in her favour, and Mr. Ferrall's small hold on the
interest and affections of his parishioners, she was brought in Not
Guilty, and the hangman's cord fell slack from his greedy grasp.
It must have been somewhere about this time that the execution mentioned
by Dr. More in his 'Antidote to Atheism' took place, when a mother and
daughter were hanged at Cambridge for witchcraft and service to the
Devil. When the mother was called on to renounce and forsake her old
master, she refused to do so, saying that he had been faithful to her for
fourscore years, and she would not be faithless now to him. And in that
obstinacy she died, with a courage and constancy worthy a better cause.
The daughter was of a contrary mind. She avowed her misdeeds, and asked
for pardon and grace, was penitent, and faithful, and earnest in prayer.
All of which the Devil took, as may be imagined, very heinously; and
showed his displeasure by sending, in the midst of a dead calm, so sudden
and violent a blast of wind, that the mother's body was driven sharply
against the ladder, and was like to have overturned it, while the gallows
shook with such force that the men standing round were fain to hold the
posts, for fear of all being flung to the ground. It was somewhat before
this, that at Town Malling, in Kent, one of Queen Mary's Justices, "on the
complaint of many wise men, and a few foolish boyes, laid an archer by the
heels because he shot so near the white at buts. For he was informed and
perswaded that the poor man played with a fly, otherwise called a devill
or familiar. And because he was certified that the archer aforesaid shot
better than the common shooting, which he before had heard of or seen, he
conceived it could not be in God's name, but by inchantment, whereby the
archer (as he supposed, by abusing the Queen's liege people) gained some
one day two or three shillings, to the detriment of the commonwealth, and
to his owne inriching. And therefore the archer was severely punished, to
the great encouragement of archers, and to the wise example of justice,
but specially to the overthrow of witchcraft." Which quaint little
anecdote of Scot's is worth a whole handful of jewels more richly set.
We are coming now to one of the most curious of the older trials, that
of--