A young lawyer, a Mr. Darrel, had a call to the ministry. He was made
aware of this by the extraordinary sluggishness that came upon him when he
turned to open a law book; so, as preaching puritanical sermons extempore
was less toilsome and cost less study than learning the intricacies of the
Codex Anglicanus, he became converted to extreme doctrines, and was
principally regarded as a Man of Hope, skilful in casting out devils and
marvellously apt at discovering witchcraft. His first essay at this work
was in 1587 with Katherine Green, a young girl of seventeen, who had some
hysterical affection which caused her to swell to an enormous size and led
her to fancies and delusions, as, that she saw shapes and apparitions, and
a young child without feet or legs looking at her from out a well. She
also had fits, which she afterwards confessed were simulated in order to
make her father-in-law, who was generally exceedingly severe with her,
more kind and pliable: but Mr. Darrel said they were the fits of
possession, and, as a proof, cast eight devils out of her; specially one
sturdy devil, called Middlecub, which had been sent into her by Margaret
Roper. Mr. Darrel at once seized Margaret Roper, accusing her of this
Middlecub imp, and sending her off to the magistrate, Mr. Fouliamb; and in
the meanwhile Katherine suffered herself to be repossessed, having been
imprudent enough to talk with the devil in the likeness of a handsome
young man who met her in the lanes, where he entertained her with
propositions of marriage, and gave her some bread to eat. Mr. Fouliamb
happened to be a man of sense, and discharged Margaret Roper, at the same
time threatening to send Darrel to prison in her stead if he took on
himself to calumniate honest folk without cause. This rebuff cooled the
young lawyer parson's ardour a little; but in 1594 the Starkies of
Lancashire announced themselves possessed, and Mr. Darrel must needs go
down to vex the foul fiend that had gotten them. For he was so holy a man
that the devils hated him mightily, being sorely vexed in his presence,
and crying out, "Now he is gone; now he is gone; now blacke coate is
gone," as soon as he quitted them, wearied with his wrestling. The story
of the Starkies was this:--
Anne, aged nine, and John, of ten, were taken with "dumpish heavie
countenances," and fearful startings of their bodies, loud shouting fits,
and convulsions. The father went to Hartley, a known conjuror, who came to
their aid with popish charms and certain herbs; and so stilled them for a
year and a half. But when he "fained as thought he would haue gone into
another countrey," the children fell ill again, and Mr. Starkie thought it
best to secure the perpetual services of the conjuror by a fee of forty
shillings yearly. But Hartley wanted more, and thereupon began a quarrel
which ended in the Possession of the children, of three scholars living at
the Starkies, of Margaret Byron, and lastly of Hartley himself. Now
Hartley had a devil, and whomsoever he kissed he inoculated with this
devil and breathed it into them. And as he was always kissing some
one--John for love often, the little wenches in jest, to Margaret Hardman
"promising a thraue of kisses," "wrestling with Johan Smyth, a maid, to
kiss her"--he had given the devil in rich proportion all through the
Starkies' house, and only Mr. Darrel could exorcise him. The possessed
leaped about like goats, and crawled on all fours like beasts, and barked
like dogs, and had communications from a white dove, and saw horned devils
under the beds, and had visions of big black dogs with monstrous tails and
bound with chains, and huge black cats and big mice that knocked them down
at a blow, and left them speechless, cold, and dead. And then they took to
"slossinge up their meat like greedy dogges or hogges," and they made the
same noises as a broken-winded horse; and they howled and shrieked; and
one of them, Jane Ashton the servant aged thirty, fell foul of Edmund
Hartley for all his kisses and promises of marriage; and they "yelled and
whupped;" and there was in very truth the devil to pay in that horrible
house when Mr. More and Mr. Darrel went to exorcise the fiends and restore
the possessed to their senses. After some days of prayer, and of fighting
with the devil who would cry out when Mr. Darrel was preaching, "Bible
bable, he will never have done prating, prittle prattle;" and "I must goe,
I must away; I cannot tarrie; whither shall I goe? I am hot, I am too hot,
I will not dye!" and such like, six of them were delivered, and visibly
and bodily dispossessed. With one, Mary Byron, the devil came up from her
stomach to her breast, then to her throat, when it gave her "a sore lug,"
whilst a mist dazzled her eyes. Then she felt it go out of her mouth,
leaving behind it a sore throat and a filthy smell, and it was in the
likeness of a crow's head, and it sat in a corner of the parlour in the
dark; but suddenly flashing out all a fire it flew out of the window, and
the whole place was in a blaze, according to her imagination. John Starkie
lost his in the shape of a man with a humpback and very ill-favoured, who,
when he had gone out wished much to re-enter, but Master John withstood
him, and had the best of it. He was like a "foule ugly man with a white
beard and a 'bulch' on his back." The same tale had little Ellin Holland
and Anne Starkie to tell, all save the white beard. Elinor Hardman lost
hers as an urchin, but presently returning through a little hole in the
parlour, he offered her gold and silver in any quantity if she would let
him enter again, and when she resisted he threatened to cast her into the
fire and the pit, and to break her neck; all of which threats being
unheeded by the little maid of ten, he left her again in his old form of
"urchin." The next day, and the next, all these devils came again, seeking
to repossess the children. They came in various forms--as a black raven; a
black boy, with his head bigger than his body; a black rough dog with a
firebrand in his mouth; five white doves; a brave fellow like a wooer; two
little whelps that played on the table, and ran into a dish of butter; an
ape; a bear with fire in his mouth; a haystack--all, haystack as well as
the rest, promising them bags of gold and silver if they might come into
them again, but threatening to break their necks and their backs, and
throw them into the pit and the fire, and out of the window, if denied.
But Messrs. More and Darrel were instant in prayer, and successfully
withstood them. The children were pronounced finally dispossessed: all
save Jane Ashton, who went away to a popish family and became popish
herself; wherefore the devil recovered her, says Mr. Darrel, and her last
state was worse than her first. As for Edmund Hartley, he was hanged at
Lancaster, chiefly through Mr. Darrel's exertions.
In 1596 Mr. Darrel had more work. Thomas Darling, "the Boy of Burton," had
offended old Alice Goodridge; so Alice possessed him, and Mr. Darrel was
sent for the undoing. His chief weapon in this case was a ranting tract
called "The Enemie of Securitie," which the devil could not abide any how,
and during the reading of which he would cry out--through the earthly
medium of the Boy of Burton--"Radulphus, Belzebub can doe no good, his
head is stricken off with a word."--"We cannot prevaile (against the
church and Mr. Darrel), for they will not be holpen by witches. Brother
Radulphus, we cannot prevaile; let us go to our mistress and torment her;
I have had a draught of her blood to-day." "Againe--'There is a woman
earnest at prayer, get her away.' 'Nay,' quoth John Alsop (a man that was
present), with a loude voice, 'we cannot spare her.' Thus the Boy graced
Mistress Wightman, his aunt. And againe, 'Brother Glassop (another devil),
we cannot prevaile, his faith is soe strong. And they fast and pray, and a
preacher prayeth as fast as they.'" And "I bayted my hooke often, and at
last I catcht him. Heere I was before, and heere I am againe, and heere I
must stay, though it be but for a short tyme. I leade them to drink,
carouse, and quaffe. I make them to sweare. I have leave given mee to doe
what I will for a time. What is wightier than a Kinge in his owne lande? A
King I am, in whome I raigne, heere I am King for a time." With much more
of the same kind. In the mean time old Alice Goodridge, who had wrought
all this mischief, died in prison, while her devilish spirit or imp,
Minnie, whom she had sent into the boy, racketed and rioted in his soul
and body, and Mr. Darrel wrestled against him with prayer and "the Enemie
of Securitie." He finally prevailed, and after Thomas Darling had been
possessed and dispossessed and repossessed again, delivered him from
Radulphus and Minnie and Glassop and Beelzebub, and so had leisure to turn
to some one else when needed.
That some one else was soon found; for there was Will Somers, a lad living
with Mr. Brakenbury at Ashby-de-la-Zouch during the time of Mr. Darrel's
ministry there, who was now at Nottingham, and one of the most
accomplished demoniacs of the day. Nothing would satisfy Will but that Mr.
Darrel should be sent for to cast the devil out of him. He had known of
his prowess with Katherine Wright, and the Starkies, and the Boy of
Burton, and why should he not glorify God and the Puritans as well in
Nottingham as in Lancashire? Accordingly, that gentleman was sent for on
the 5th of November, 1597, and the farce began. Before Mr. Darrel even saw
the lad he said he was possessed, and he said the same thing to
himself--counterfeiting or illness being of course put out of court; and
he described to the bystanders in what shape the devil would appear when
driven out of the lad--for he would make himself visible to them if they
had but faith and courage and patience to see the end, and if they would
not be terrified when the boy "scriehed or cryed aloude in a strange and
supernaturall manner; sometimes roaring fearfullye lyke a beare, and
crying like a swyne." The shapes, then, in which he would go were
these--"a Mouse, a Man with a Hunch-back higher than his Head, an ugly Man
with a white Beard, a Crow's Head round, a great Breath, ugly like a Toad,
an Urchin, &c." And he told them, also in the lad's hearing, of what other
possessed persons had done: how they had cast themselves into fire or
water, gnashed with their teeth, writhed with their necks, and drawn their
mouths awry, foaming. Then he said that Will Somers was afflicted for the
sins of Nottingham, and God had made even the devil a preacher to deter
them from them; whereat Will acted by signs all the sins of Nottingham,
and Mr. Darrel explained them to the people as he went on. With such a
master as this, it was no difficult matter for the pupil to succeed. Two
sermons were preached on his behalf. During Mr. Aldred's he lay still,
excepting a little struggle now and then: this was to show that Mr. Aldred
was not powerful as a Man of God. But when Mr. Darrel began, he roused
himself up, and on his describing the fourteen signs of Possession one
after the other, acted them all to the life as he told them off. "He tore;
he foamed; he wallowed; his Face was drawn awry; his Eyes would stare and
his Tongue hang out; he had a Swelling would seem to run from his Forehead
down by his Ear and Throat, and through his Belly and Thighs, to the Calf
of his Legs; he would speak with his Mouth scarce moving; and when they
looked his Tongue would seem drawn down his Throat; he would try to cast
himself into the Fire and Water; he would seem heavy that they could not
lift him, and his Joints stiff that they could not bend them." And when
Mr. Darrel further exhorted them all to stand firm, and they would see the
glory of God in the dispossession, he cried and rended and laid as if
dead, just in the order which the preacher desired. Then he rose up cured
and exorcised; but Mr. Darrel told him he might be possessed again, and he
must be very careful and watchful. Of course he was possessed again. He
had been too great a gainer by the first trial not to venture on a second.
If he had been bought off his apprenticeship, had large presents of
clothes, and kept in idleness at his father-in-law's, for a first trial,
what might not fall from the skies on this second occasion? So Will began
to talk wildly of a black dog that haunted him, offering him gold and
ginger, and of the devil who came with six more shapes to torment
him--namely, as a cock, a crane, a snake, an angel, a toad, a newt, a set
of viols, and dancers, and that he stood before him "with a foure-forked
cappe on his heade;" sometimes, too, making noises and motions like whelps
or "kitlings." Fourteen persons were thrown into prison, accused of
bewitching Master Will, of whom the most celebrated was Millicent Horslie,
whom no human skill could have saved had not the impostor betrayed himself
in time. For Will Somers had a revelation concerning her, which must be
told in the words of his "confession," as reported by Harsnet:--"Maister
Darrel told my father-in-law and others in my hearing, that he, the said
Maister Darrel, Maister Aldred, and some others, were going to carrie
Millicent Horsley (that present morning) to the said Maister Perkins, to
be examined. Whereupon, I gessing by the time of Maister Darrel's
departure, and by the distance of the way, and of the likelihood that she
woulde deny herselfe to bee a witche, said to those that were present by
mee in one of my fittes, about eleven of the clocke, that Millicent
Horsley was in examining, and that she denyed herselfe to be a witch."
This coincidence was too striking an instance of supernatural power to be
overlooked. Mr. Darrel worked on it as one of the most marvellous proofs
of the boy's undeniable possession, and Millicent Horsley lay in gaol,
together with thirteen others, to satisfy the craft of one and the
credulity of the other, and to prove the whole age sick, diseased, and
enfeebled by superstition.
Will's sister, Mary Cowper, seeing how pleasant and profitable a thing it
was to be bewitched, followed in her brother's steps, and cried out on
Alice Freeman, a poor old creature who thought to escape by saying she was
with child. The plea was not a very safe one, for Mr. Darrel told her if
she was, it was by the devil, and she had better have held her tongue. But
by this time the parish authorities got frightened, and interfered;
sending Will off to the workhouse, where he still continued his fits and
antics, until a rough fellow there, one John Shepheard, told him that if
he "did not leave and rise up he would set such a pair of Knip-knaps upon
him as should make him rue it"--when he gathered himself up and confessed
his imposture. Mr. Darrel would have none of this recantation. He said he
was more possessed than ever, and that it was the devil within him that
made him to lie. So Will wrote the following letter, as a kind of quietus
to his zealous friend:--
"Mr. Darrel, my hearty Commendations unto you. This is to desire you that
you would let me be at quiet: For whereas you said that I was Possessed, I
was not; and for those Tricks that I did before you came, was through
Folks Speeches that came to me: And those that I did since, was through
your Speeches, and others. For as you said I could not hear, I did hear
all Things that were done in the House, and all Things that I did were
counterfeit; And I pray you to let it pass; for the more you meddle in
it, the more discredit it will be for you: And I pray God, and you, and
all the World to forgive me."
Even this was not enough. Will was bribed over by the promise of a good
place in a gentleman's house if he would be properly demoniac again; and
consenting thereto, played again his old tricks; but the Lord Chief
Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson, not believing a word of it all, encouraged
him kindly to tell the truth, and not be afraid; so Will started up and
was perfectly well, and for the greater satisfaction of the gentlefolks
showed them how he worked.
And to prove how small was the value of evidence in those days, one
Richard Mee--who was held to have deposed "That he had seen William Somers
turn his Face directly backward, not moving his Body, and that his Eyes
were as great as Beasts' Eyes, and that his Tongue would be thrust out of
his Head to the bigness of a Calve's Tongue" when re-examined explained
himself thus:--"My Meaning was that he turned his Face a good Way towards
his Shoulder, and that his Eyes were something gogling; and by reason that
it was Candle-light when I saw his Tongue thrust out, and by reason of my
Conceit of the Strangeness of Somers's Troubles, it seemed somewhat bigger
than, if Somers had been well, I should have thought it to have been."
Again, a black dog which Will had cried out on as the devil, and which, by
reason of his words had actually been taken for the devil with eyes
glaring like fire, come back to repossess him, turned out to be nothing
but a spurrier's dog crouching in the background of the darkening chamber.
So, when carefully sifted, would the evidence of all such-like marvels
prove to be merest chaff scattered on the ground; and yet, a century
after, Mr. Richard Boulton is found repeating the story of Will Somers'
possession as if it had never been disproved; and there are some even now
living who would cite it as a case of proved spiritualism. Mr. Darrel was
degraded from the ministry, and committed to close prison: rather harsh
measures simply because he had more faith and a little less discretion
than his neighbours.