In 1589, Robert Throckmorton, Esquire, lived at Warbois, in
Huntingdonshire. He had five daughters, the eldest of whom, Miss Joan, was
fifteen, while the rest came down in steps, two years or so between each,
in the ordinary manner. On the tenth of November, Mistress Jane, being
then near ten years of age, was suddenly seized with a kind of fit. She
"screeked" loud and often, lay as if in a trance for half an hour or more,
shook one leg or one arm and no other, "as if the Palsie had been in it,"
made her body so stiff and rigid that no man could bend her, and went
through the usual forms of a young girl's hysteria. A neighbour, one Alice
Samuel, who lived next door to the Throckmortons, went in to see the
afflicted child; for all the neighbours were flocking in to see her as a
kind of curiosity; and, stepping up into the chimney-side, sat hard down
by her, she being held in another woman's arms by the fire. Suddenly the
child cried out, "Did you ever see one more like a Witch than she is?"
pointing to Mother Samuel; "take off her black-thrumb'd cap, for I cannot
abide to look at her."
Nothing was thought of her words at the time, the mother merely chiding
her for her lightness of speech; but "the old woman hearing her, sat
still, without saying a word, yet looked very dismally, as those that saw
her remembered very well." And as well she might, poor old soul; for she
must have known that Mrs. Jane's light speech would in all probability be
heavy enough to bring her down to the grave.
Doctoring did the child no good. Dr. Barrow of Cambridge, the most noted
man of the district, gave the distemper no satisfactory name, and his
remedies were powerless to remove it; Mr. Butler, another skilful man, was
equally at fault; and when, about a month after Mrs. Jane had been
attacked, two other daughters were driven to the like extremity, and
"cry'd out upon Mother Samuel, 'Take her away, look where she standeth
there before us in a black thrumb'd Cap (which she commonly wore, though
not then); it's she that hath bewitched us, and she will kill us if you
don't take her away,'" the parents were moved to believe the whole thing
supernatural, and that Mother Samuel had indeed bewitched them as they
said. About a month after the affliction of these two, a younger child,
not quite nine years old, was taken like the rest; and soon after Mrs.
Joan, of fifteen, went the same way--only more severely handled than them
all. Mrs. Joan had a specialty in her fits. She was not only hysterical
like her sisters, but she had a Spirit, and this Spirit sounded in her
ears information of things to come: as, that the servants as well as the
five children should be bewitched--which they were, but did not become so
notorious as the little impostors of better blood; all recovering so soon
as they left the house for other situations, and nothing more being heard
of them. Things went on then in this manner, the children being
perpetually tormented with fits, and for ever crying out against old dame
Samuel, when, in February of the next year (1590), it was resolved to
bring her to the house that the children might "scratch" her, and so
relieve themselves somewhat. Whereupon she, her young daughter Agnes, and
one Cicely Burder--both of whom were accused of the same malpractices as
herself--were haled to Mr. Throckmorton's, there to undergo their
preliminary ordeal. Every care was taken to prevent the mother from
holding any communication with her daughter Agnes; but at the entry she
managed to lean over and whisper to her. Mr. Pickering, the children's
uncle, who had undertaken to conduct this Scratching, was ready to swear
that she said, "I charge thee do not confess anything;" but Mother Samuel
swore, in her turn, that she had only charged her to hasten home to get
her father his dinner; for that same father was a terrible old Turk, and
not likely to wait patiently for his dinner or aught else.
When the women went into the house the children were standing by the fire,
perfectly well; but the instant they saw Mother Samuel, they fell down in
their fits, leaping and springing about like fishes newly taken out of the
water, drawing their heads and heels backwards, and throwing out their
arms with great groans that were terrible and troublesome to those that
beheld them. They screamed and struggled to get at the old woman,
scratching at the bed-clothes, or the maids' aprons, or anything they
could touch, crying out, "O! that I had her! O! that I had her!" And when
Mr. Pickering forced Mother Samuel's hand within theirs, they scratched at
it with so much vehemence that one of them splintered her nails "with her
eager desire of revenge;" doing the same by Cicely Burder, who thus, we
are not told how or why, found herself in a dangerous and equivocal
position, but seems to have got well out of it in time. Or perhaps she
died between whiles, happily for herself.
For the next few months it was Mrs. Elizabeth Throckmorton who kept up the
ball. Mr. Pickering took her away with him to his own house, where she
fooled them all to the top of their bent, crying out to Mother Samuel to
take away her mouse, for she would have none of it, and exclaiming in
piteous tones that Mother Samuel was trying to force a cat, or a frog, or
sometimes a toad, into her mouth; hopping about on one leg, pretending to
be utterly incapable of putting the other to the ground; sometimes going
for two steps at a time, when "she would halt and give a beck with her
head as low as her knees;" asking if no one heard the spirit within her
lapping the milk she had just taken; playing at cards with her eyes shut,
or seemingly so; and falling into drowsy fits which took her even in the
midst of meals, or any while else specially untimely. Her bewitchment took
a certain controversial turn too, and witnessed for the Pope and the
Devil; for "on the Eleventh, one asked her if she loved the Word of God;
whereupon she was much troubled and tormented. When they asked, Love you
Witchcraft? she was content. Love you the Bible? it shaked her. Love you
Papistry? the Devil within her was quiet. Love you Prayer? it raged. Love
you the Mass? it was still. Love you the Gospel? it heaved up her Belly;
so that every good thing it disliked; but whatever concerned Popish
Idolatry it was pleased with." Mr. Pickering kept this sectarian young
lady from March to September, and then it pleased Mistress Elizabeth to
require change of air and scene, and she demanded to be taken back to her
father's house at Warbois. There she played off her tricks with new
vigour, when Lady Cromwell, wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, Knt., hearing of
these heavy afflictions came to visit the children and comfort the
parents. The children of course went off into their customary state; it
was not their game to disappoint my Lady; "and were so grievously
Tormented that it moved the good Lady's Heart with Pity, so that she could
not forbear Tears, and caused old Mother Samuel to be sent for, who durst
not deny to come, because her Husband was Tenant to Sir Henry Cromwell."
As soon as she came in, the children were so much worse that the Lady,
transported beyond herself, and exceedingly angry that Mother Samuel would
not confess to her crime, seized hold of her as she was struggling to get
free of their hands and slip out of the room, pulled off her kircher, and
cut off a lock of her hair, which she gave privately to Mrs. Throckmorton
together with the old dame's hairlace; bidding her burn them. The old
woman turning against the Lady, said, half sorrowfully, "Madam, why do you
use me thus? I never did you any harm as yet:" words to be remembered and
treasured up against her, when the hour came. That very night Lady
Cromwell had bad dreams concerning Mother Samuel and her cat, which she
said came to strip all the flesh from her--and awakened, crying mightily
and much distressed. From that time she had fits, and continued very
hardly holden till her dying day, which was one year and a quarter after
the visit to Warbois. So Mother Samuel's words were held to have been
witch's threats, and the whole country was convinced that Lady Cromwell
had died by her magic arts, and bewitched. As she was, poor lady, with
nervous fear and superstition and ignorance.
The next year, in the winter of 1591, Mr. Henry Pickering, a young student
at Cambridge, tried to make Dame Samuel confess, but she would not suffer
him or his companions to speak, and when they desired her to speak
softlier, answered: "She was born in a Mill, begot in a Kiln, and must
have her Will, and could speak no softlier." Then Mr. Henry began to
question her on her faith, but got only tart answers; so, losing patience,
he said that if she did not repent and confess to having worked that
wickedness on the children, he hoped one day to see her burn at the stake,
and that he would bring wood and faggots and the children should blow the
coals. To which old Dame Samuel replied that she "would rather see him
doused over head in the pond;" and so went away home, to be beaten for
gossiping and staying late, by that terrible old Turk of hers.
And now the children would be well only when the dame was with them; so
the parents sought to engage her to live with them, but the old Turk would
not give his consent, and beat her severely with a cudgel on the slightest
pretext. The whole thing angered him, and his dame could not do right let
her do what she would. However, he was prevailed on to spare her for eight
or nine days, during which time the lying little girls professed
themselves cured of all their haunting spirits--dun chickens, naked babes,
and the like; to the old woman's extreme consternation and passionate
assurances of innocence. Then the children turned against Agnes Samuel,
the daughter, declaring that she had bewitched them equally with the
mother: whereupon the father, Mr. Throckmorton, went to bring her to the
house; when she hid herself in an attic or loft, barricading herself in by
sacks of wool piled up on the trapdoor. She was forced to come down at
last, and her fear was made the chief evidence against her. The hour had
come round for her on Time's cruel dial, and she could not escape the
inevitable decree that had gone forth. All this while the old mother was
forcibly detained at Mr. Throckmorton's house; the children pretending
that they could be well only in her presence, and absolutely refusing to
let her go, though she was sick and fearful and weary, and cried to get
home again to her daughter and husband. That uncompromising oaken cudgel
of his was less terrible than the awful suspicion under which she was
living here; and the harassing uncertainty of her life--never knowing what
new lie the children might frame against her, nor how much nearer they
might bring her to the gallows by some wicked fancy or delusion--was
infinitely worse than all the oaths and ill-usage of home, of which she
knew at least the extent and end. She seems to have been a gentle-spirited
old creature in spite of her crusty tongue; and at the beck of every one
who chose to knock her about and require from her service and submission.
When Mr. Throckmorton had teased and threatened and exhorted her, till she
was completely "dazed and mazed" with all she heard--and when the children
had acted their fits with such power and accuracy that they simulated
nature to the life, and had impressed even her with all the wicked things
which their Spirits told them of her and of her daughter--her mind,
enfeebled by suffering and terror, gave way, and she was deluded into a
confession of sin and penitence; after which she obtained leave to go
home. As her husband gave her but a harsh welcome, angry with her for her
weakness in confessing, she recanted as of course; when Mr. Throckmorton,
getting hold of her by an open window beneath which his friends were
stationed, bullied and deluded her once more into making a confession
which they might hear; and on the strength of which he carried off both
dame and daughter, to be examined by the Bishop of Lincoln.
The Bishop found her easy. Yes, she had an imp; a dun chicken which sucked
on her chin, and which she had sent to torment the Throckmorton girls. The
dun chicken and the rest of the spirits were now at the bottom of her
stomach, and made her so full and heavy that she could not lace her coat,
nor was the horse on which she rode able to carry her all the way: she had
three spirits, all like dun chickens--Pluck, Catch, and White, which had
been given her by an "upright man," extremely hard, of the name of
Langland, of no particular dwelling and now gone beyond seas; and she had
sent all three to the children and had plagued them sorely. This she said
at various times, at each clause conjuring the devil and her spirits to
inform her of the facts required by the Right Reverend Father in God.
After her examination she and her daughter were committed to gaol; but Mr.
Throckmorton got Agnes out on bail that he might take her home to the
children, and see what they would say of her. This seemed to him the best
way to complete the evidences of guiltiness against her, which at present
were very slight and worthless. So the net closed tighter and tighter
round this hapless family, and soon the deep black waves, rolling onward,
dashed over their devoted heads.
When they heard that Agnes was brought back to Warbois, the children fell
into their fits again, each saying, "I am glad, I am glad; none so glad as
I." They knew the cruel sport preparing for them, and were in no hurry to
abandon the pleasant excitement of their Possession, during which they
were made so many centres of public interest, petted and commiserated and
looked at and talked about and made of more consequence than the finest
lady in the land. When the game was over they must sink down into the
humdrum lives of good little girls in a country town, of no possible
interest to living being outside their own house door. Surely an event to
be deferred to the latest moment possible! For the first three or four
days after Agnes' arrival they condescended to be well, but, being by that
time tired of their new companion, they fell back into their former state,
and cried out against her more bitterly than they had ever done against
her mother. She was more helpless, too, than the mother, and more entirely
in their power; so that the sport was greater, and the fear of opposition
or detection less. Specially did Mistress Joan, the eldest girl, torment
her; who, being at this time seventeen, had other ideas of spirits than
dun chickens, mice, or frogs, which were all very well in the days of her
infancy but quite uninteresting to her now. The manner in which she
introduced her Spirits was singular. One day, just after her nose had
bled, and she had said "it would be a good thing to throw her handkerchief
into the fire, and burn the young witch," she suddenly looked about her
smiling, and said, "What is this in God's Name that comes tumbling to me?
It tumbles like a Foot-bal, it looks like a puppit-player, and appears
much like its Dame's old thrumb Cap. 'What is your Name, I pray you?' said
she. The Thing answered, his Name was Blew. To which she answered, 'Mr.
Blew you are welcome, I never saw you before; I thought my Nose bled not
for nothing, what News have you brought? What,' says she, 'dost thou say I
shall be worse handled than ever I was? Ha! what dost thou say? that I
shall now have my Fits, when I shall both hear and see and know every
Body? that's a new Trick indeed. I think never any of my Sisters were so
used, but I care not for you: do your worst, and when you have done, you
will make an end.'" Then she cried out that Agnes Samuel had too much
liberty, and must be more strictly looked to; for that Mr. Blew had told
her she should have no peace till she and the old dame were hanged.
Mrs. Joan had opened a most prolific and amusing vein. Her imagination
stopped at nothing, and she showed herself no mean hand at romance. She
was very consecutive too, and kept up the likeness well. In the evening
Mr. Blew appeared again, chiefly for the purpose of telling her that young
Nan Samuel was his Dame, and to ask when the Spirit Smack, of whom he was
jealous, had been with her. Mrs. Joan said she knew of no Smack. "You do,"
says the Thing, "and it is he that tells you all these things, but I will
curse him for it." "Do your worst to me or him, I care not for you," says
she. "Farewel," says the Thing. "Do you bid me farewel?" says she;
"farewel, and be hanged; and come again when you are sent for." So then
she came out of her fit. The next day a strange gentleman coming, Mrs.
Elizabeth passed off into one of her wild states, and Mr. Throckmorton,
"to show the gentleman a wonder," sent for young Agnes, and made her say
after him, "I charge thee, thou Devil, as I love thee, and have Authority
over thee, and am a Witch, and guilty of this matter, that thou suffer
this Child to be well at this present." Upon which Mrs. Elizabeth wiped
her eyes, and was perfectly well; and the wretched young girl was by so
many steps nearer to her doom. The next day was a grand field-day for
Mrs. Joan. Her spirits were in admirable disorder. Mr. Smack came from
fighting with Pluck about her, for they were both in love with her, and
had fought with great cowl staves last night in old dame's back yard, and
Smack had broken Pluck's head, for which Mrs. Joan was not at all
thankful, but, when he looked for a little loving word of gratitude,
answered, scornfully, that she wished Pluck had broke his neck also, and
so bid him go and be hanged for she would have nought to do with him.
Presently in came Mr. Pluck, hanging down his broken head and looking very
sheepish, but jealous and angry with Smack who seemed to have the best
chance of them all with the young lady. Another day it was Catch who came
in limping, with a broken leg got from the redoubtable Smack; but when
Mrs. Joan tried to break his other leg with a stick she had in her
hand--for she was a very scornful young lady to them--she could not; for
ever as she struck at him he leaped over the stick, "just like a
Jack-an-apes," as she said. Mr. Blew's turn came next. He appeared before
her at supper with his arm in a sling: Smack had broken it. So Smack broke
Pluck's head, Catch's leg, and Blew's arm, and then came himself to tell
her that he would beat them all again, with the help of his cousin another
Smack, and one Hardname, whose "Name standeth upon eight Letters, and
every Letter standeth for a Word, but what his Name is otherwise we know
not." Then Smack and she conversed about the propriety of "scratching"
Agnes Samuel; and it was agreed between them that she should not scratch
her then, because her face would be healed by the Assizes, but just before
that time when all the world might see the marks.
And now began a scene of painful brutality. Whenever the children fell
into their fits, they would only consent to be got out of them by Agnes'
repeating a form of conjuration, in which she acknowledged herself to be a
witch and guilty of their disease, commanding the devil, whom she had sent
into them, to leave them. Then they came round, and were well until
strangers called, when they invariably went off into their fits--which we
can quite well understand--or until they got tired of the monotony of
health. The most terrible threats were held out against Nan Samuel; and
each child talked to its particular spirit with passion and fury of
scratching her. It came at last: the little diabolical tempers which rose
higher and higher with each fresh indulgence, getting weary of only fits
and muttered communications with spirits and the thirst for blood grew
into a frenzy. One of the younger children, Mrs. Mary, one day fell into a
"very troublesome Fit," which held her half an hour, and at the last,
growing better, she said, "Is it true? Do you say this is the day I must
scratch the young Witch? I am glad of it; I will pay her home both for
myself and Sisters." The young Pickering men who were standing by, hearing
this, sent for Agnes to come into the room; when she came in the child
cried out, "Art thou come, thou young Witch, who hath done all this
mischief?" At which Agnes seemed surprised, this being the first time Mrs.
Mary had abused her. Then one of the company told her to take Mary in her
arms, and carry her down stairs; but she had no sooner got hold of her
than the child fell to scratching her head and face with eager fierceness;
the poor girl standing still and holding down her head, not defending
herself but only crying out pitifully, while the child scratched on her
face a broad and bleeding wound. When she was out of breath and thus
forced to leave off, she cried and said "she was sorry for her cruelty,
but the Thing made her do it, so that she could not help herself." Another
day it was another of them who fell upon the maid, she not defending
herself or resenting, but "crying out sadly, desiring the Lord to pitty
her." Then they abused her, saying, "Thy Mother is a Witch, thy Father is
a Witch, and thou art a Witch, and the worst of all;" and then they
clamoured for the father, the old Turk, and would have him in to scratch
him too. Just at that moment old Samuel chanced to come in to see his
daughter--for he knew what kind of treatment she had to undergo--when a
great hubbub arose. The children cried out against him, and--wretched
young hypocrites!--exhorted him in the godliest terms to confess and
repent; called him witch and naughty man and all the rest of the injuries
then current; while he retorted fiercely and rudely, and told one of the
little baggages she lied--as she did. But Mr. Throckmorton got angry, and
would not let him go till he had pronounced the same conjuration as that
by which his poor daughter was forced to "fyle" herself; and when he had
said the words, the child came out of her fit, and acted amazement and
shame to the life. So it went on: the children having their fits, being
visited by their spirits, of whom there were nine now afloat--three
Smacks, Pluck, Blew, Catch, White, Callicot, and Hardname--and every day
or so scratching poor Nan till her face and back and hands were one mass
of scars and wounds. And then the Assize time came, and the three
Samuels--father, mother, and daughter--were put upon their trial for
bewitching Lady Cromwell to death, and tormenting Mrs. Joan Throckmorton
and her sisters. There could be no mistake about it now, for not only had
they all three convicted themselves by their own confessions in the
conjuration which they had been obliged to repeat, but even before the
judge, Mrs. Jane played off the like trick, falling into a terrible fit
which only old Samuel could get her out of by repeating the charm. At
first he was obstinate and sturdily refused to say the words; but on the
judge telling him that he should be brought in guilty if he did not, he
consented, and had no sooner said--"As I am a witch, and did consent to
the death of the Lady Cromwell, so I charge thee, Devil, to suffer Mrs.
Jane to come out of her Fit at this present"--than Mrs. Jane wiped her
eyes, looked round her, and said, "O Lord father where am I?" pretending
to be quite amazed at her position. No hand is wanting when there is
stoning to be done. Now that the Samuels were fairly convicted of
witchcraft in one instance, witnesses came forward to prove them guilty of
the like in others. It was remembered how certain persons had died who had
offended the old dame; how others had lost their cows and whole farm stock
in consequence of giving her rough language; how, even since she had been
in gaol, she had bewitched to his death one of the turnkeys who had
chained her to a bedpost, and had cruelly afflicted the gaoler's own son,
so that he could not be recovered but by "scratching" her; with the
further proof that when the grand jury returned a true bill, "billa vera,"
against them, old father Samuel burst out passionately to her with, "A
plague of God light on thee, for thou art she that has brought us all to
this, and we may thank thee for it." So the judge, "after good divine
counsel given to them, proceeded to Judgment, which was to death." But the
poor old woman set up a plea of being with child, though she was near
fourscore years of age; at which all the court laughed, and she herself
most of all, thinking it might save her. Some one standing near to Agnes
counselled her to try the like plea; but the brave young girl, who had
something of her father's spirit in her, indignantly refused. "No," said
Agnes, with the gallows straight before her, and this desperate plea
perhaps able to save her--"no; it shall never be said that I was both
Witch and ----." She died with the same haughty courage maintained to the
last: but old mother Samuel maundered through a vast number of
confessions--implicated her husband--confessed to her spirits--but with
one affecting touch of nature, through all her drivel and imbecility
steadily refused to criminate her daughter. No, her Nan was no witch; she
was clear and pure before God and towards man; and neither force nor
cajolery could make her forswear that bit of loving truth.
When those three helpless wretches were fairly dead, the children, upon
whose young souls lay the ineffaceable stain of Murder, and whose first
steps in life had been through innocent blood, gave up the game and
pronounced themselves cured: so we hear no more of their fits or their
spirits, or Mrs. Joan's ghostly lovers fighting with cowl staves and
breaking each other's heads out of jealousy and revenge: and the last
record of the case is, that Sir Henry Cromwell left an annual sum of forty
shillings to provide for a yearly sermon against witchcraft, to be
preached at Huntingdon by a B.D. or D.D. member of Queen's College,
Cambridge. How terrible to think that three human lives were sacrificed
for such wild and wilful nonsense, and that sane and thoughtful and
noble-minded people of this present day walk on the way towards the same
faith! Better by far the most chill and desolate scepticism, which at
least will light no Smithfield fires for any forms of creed or monstrous
imaginings of superstition, than beliefs which can only be expressed and
maintained by blood, and the culmination of which is in the suffering and
destruction of all dissentients.