The Earl and Countess of Rutland had shown much kindness to the widow Joan
Flower, and her two daughters Philip and Margaret. Joan and Philip were
employed at the castle pretty constantly as charwomen, and Margaret was
taken into the castle itself, "looking both to the poultrey abroad and the
washhouse within doores," and evidently a great favourite with my Lady,
who trusted her much. Their good fortune raised them up a host of
enemies, as is always the case; and backbiters went with tales to the Lord
and Lady, saying, "First, that Ioane Flower the Mother was a monstrous
malicious woman, full of oathes, curses, and imprecations, irreligious,
and, for any thing they saw by her, a plaine Atheist; besides of late days
her very countenance was estranged, her eyes were fiery and hollow, her
speech fell and enuious, her demeanour strange and exoticke, and her
conuersation sequestered; so that the whole course of her life gaue great
suspition that she was a notorious witch, yea some of her neighbours dared
to affirme that she dealt with familiar Spirits, and terrified them all
with curses and threatening of reuenge, if there were neuer so little
cause of displeasure and vnkindnesse. Concerning Margaret, that she often
resorted from the Castle to her Mother, bringing such Provision as they
thought was vnbefitting for a seruant to purloyne, and coming at such
unseasonable houres, that they could not but coniecture some mischeife
between them, and that their extraordinary ryot and expences tended both
to rob the Lady, and to maintaine certaine deboist and base company which
frequented this Ioane Flower's house the mother, and especially her
youngest Daughter. Concerning Philip that she was lewdly transported with
the loue of one Th. Simpson, who presumed to say, that she had bewitched
him: for he had no power to leaue, and was as he supposed maruellously
altered both in minde and body, since her acquainted company: these
complaints began many yeares before either their conuiction or publique
apprehension: Notwithstanding such was the honour of this Earle and his
Lady; such was the cunning of this monstrous woman in her obseruation
towards them; such was the subtilty of the Diuell to bring his purposes
to passe; such was the pleasure of God to make tryall of his seruants; and
such was the effect of a damnable womans wit and malitious enuy, that all
things were carried away in the smooth Channell of liking and good
entertainment on euery side, untill the Earle by degrees conceiued some
mislike against; and so peraduenture estranged himself from that
familiarity and accustomed conferences he was wont to haue with her;
untill one Peate offered her some wrong; against whom she complained, but
found that my Lord did affect her clamours and malicious information,
vntill one Mr. Vauasor abandoned her company, as either suspicious of her
lewd life, or distasted with his oun misliking of such base and poore
Creatures, whom nobody loued but the Earle's household; vntill the
Countesse misconceiuing of her daughter Margaret and discovering some
vndecencies both in her life and neglect of her businesse, discharged her
from lying any more in the Castle, yet gave her 40_s._, a bolster, and a
mattresse of wooll; commanding her to go home vntill the slacknesse of her
repayring to the Castle, as she was wont, did turne her loue and liking
toward this honourable Earle and his family into hate and rancor;
wherevpon despighted to bee so neglected, and exprobated by her neighbours
for her Daughters casting out of doores, and other conceiued displeasures,
she grew past all shame and womanhood, and many times cursed them all that
were the cause of this discontentment, and made her so loathsome to her
former familiar friends and beneficial acquaintance."
Things being come to this pass, it was not difficult to persuade the Earl
and his Countess that, when their eldest son Henry, Lord Ross, sickened
very strangely, and after a while died,--when their second son Francis
was also tortured by a strange sickness--and the Lady Katherine their
daughter was in danger of her life "through extreame maladies and vnusuall
fits"--it was all done by Joan Flower's witchcraft, and that the quickest
way out of their troubles was to arrest the widow and her two daughters
and see what could be done with them, both by their own confessions and
the neighbours' relations. They were arrested accordingly, and carried
before the magistrates where witnesses were not awanting. The first
evidence given was that of Philip Flower, sister to Margaret, and daughter
of poor old Joan. On the 4th of February she confessed that her mother and
sister "maliced" the Earl of Rutland, his countess, and their children,
because they were put out of the Castle; wherefore her sister Margaret, by
desire of her mother, got Lord Henry's right-hand glove which she found on
the rushes in the nursery, and delivered it to Joan, who presently rubbed
it on the back of her spirit Rutterkin, bidding him "height and goe and
doe some hurt to Henry Lord Rosse," then put it into boiling water,
pricking it many times with a knife, and burying it in the yard with a
wish that Lord Henry might never thrive. Whereupon he fell sick and
shortly after died. She also said that she often saw the spirit Rutterkin
leap on her sister Margaret's shoulder and suck her neck, and that her
mother had often cursed the earl and his lady, and boiled feathers and
blood together, "vsing many Deuillish speeches and strange gestures." On
the 22nd of the same month Margaret was examined, and she also gave no
trouble. She confessed that truly she had got Lord Henry's glove, and that
her mother had done with it in all particulars of stroking Rutterkin's
back, and putting it into boiling water, and pricking, and burying it,
according to the words of Philip; also that some two or three years ago
she had found a glove of the Lord Francis', which her mother rubbed on
Rutterkin the cat and bade him go upward, and which, by her incantations
and sorceries, caused a grievous illness to light on the little nobleman.
And she got a piece of Lady Katherine's handkercher, which her mother put
into hot water, "and then taking it out rubbed it on Rutterkin, bidding
him 'flye and go;' whereupon Rutterkin whined and cryed 'Mew,'" and the
mother said he had no power over Lady Katherine to hurt her. A few days
later both sisters were examined again, when Philip confessed that she had
a spirit which sucked her in the form of a white rat, and which she had
entertained for the space of two or three years, on condition that it
should cause Thomas Simpson to love her; and Margaret allowed that she had
two spirits, one white, the other black-spotted, to whom she had given her
soul, they covenanting to do all that she commanded them. Then she rambled
off into a wild statement of how on the thirtieth of January last, she,
being in Lincoln gaol, four devils appeared to her at eleven or twelve
o'clock at night; the one stood at her bed's foot, and had a black head
like an ape, and spake unto her; but what she could not well remember; at
which she was very angry that he would not speak plainer and let her
understand his meaning. She said that the other three were Rutterkin,
Little Robin, and Spirit, "but shee never mistrusted them nor suspected
herselfe till then." This closed the examinations of the two younger
women: for poor old Joan had died on her way to gaol "with a horrible
excruciation of soul and body," and so an end was come to of her. But if
there was nothing more to be got out of the Flower family, their
neighbours were not backward to help them with a bad word, when handy.
Anne Baker, evidently mad, Joan Willimot, and Ellen Greene, were brought
to say their say in the face of the country and before the county
justices. Joan Willimott gave evidence that Joan Flower had oftentimes
complained to her of the unfriendly conduct of my Lord of Rutland, in
turning her daughter out of the house, adding that though she could not
have her will of my Lord himself, she had spied his son and stricken him
to the heart--stricken him with a white spirit, which yet could be cured
if she so willed. Joan Willimott then "fyled" herself for a witch, saying
that she had a spirit called Pretty, given to her by her master, William
Berry of Langholme, in Rutlandshire, whom she had served three years. When
he gave it to her, he bade her open her mouth and he would blow into her a
Fairy which should do her good; and she did so; and he blew into her
mouth, and presently after there came out of her mouth a spirit which
stood upon the ground in the shape and form of a woman, and asked of her
her soul--which Joan granted--being willed thereto by her master. She did
not own to having ever hurt anyone, but said instead that she had helped
divers who had been stricken and forespoken, and that the use she made of
her spirit was to know how those did whom she had undertaken to mend. She
said, too, that her spirit came to her last night, in the form of a woman
mumbling something, but she could not understand what; and that she was
not asleep, but was as waking as at this present. On another occasion she
fyled two of her neighbours, saying how Cooke's wife had said that John
Patchet might have had his child alive, if he had asked for it,
insinuating that Cooke's wife had forespoken the said child, and that
Patchet's wife had an evil thing within her, and she knew it by her
girdle. Also that Gamaliel Greete, of Waltham, had a spirit like a white
mouse put into him in his swearing, and that those on whom he looked with
intent to hurt were hurt; and that he had a mark on his left arm, which
had been cut away; and that her own spirit had told her all this. And that
she, and Joan, and Margaret Flower, had met in Blackborrow hill, the week
before Joan's apprehension; and that she had seen in Joan's house two
spirits, the one like a rat, and the other like an owl, and that one of
them had sucked under her left ear--as she thought; and that Joan Flower
said her spirits had informed her she should be neither burnt nor hanged.
On this same day Ellen Green gave in her account, saying that some six
years since Joan Willimott had come to her in the wolds, persuading her to
forsake God and betake her to the devil, and she would give her two
spirits: which this Examinate consented unto. Whereupon Joan called two
spirits, one in the likeness of a "kittin," the other of a "moldiwarp,"
the first of which was called "pusse," and the second "hiffe hiffe;" and
they leapt on her shoulder, and sucked her. And that she sent the kittin
to a baker in the town who had offended her, but whose name she had
forgotten, and bade it bewitch him to death; and the moldiwarp she
despatched to Ann Dawse, for the same purpose and the same offence. And of
other deaths by the like means did Ellen Green accuse herself; adding that
Joan Willimott's spirit was in the form of a white dog, and that she had
seen it suck her in Barley harvest last.
And then came mad Ann Baker, who started with informing her audience that
there are four colours of planets, black, yellow, green, and blue, and
that black is always death, and that she saw the blue planet strike
William Fairbairn's son, but when William Fairbairn did beat her and break
her head, his said son Thomas did mend. Yet she sent not the blue planet.
She said that she saw a hand appear to her, and a voice in the air say,
"Anne Baker, save thyself, for to-morrow thou and thy maister must be
slain;" and that the next day, as she and her master were together in a
cart, suddenly she saw a flash of fire, but when she said her prayers the
fire went away, and then a crow came and pecked her clothes; whereat she
said her prayers again, and bade the crow go to whom it was sent, "and the
Crow went vnto her Maister and did beat him to death, and shee with her
prayers recouered him to life: but he was sick a fortnight after and saith
that if shee had not had more knowledge than her Maister, both he and shee
and all the Cattell had beene slaine." The rest of her confessions turned
upon the histories of the various deaths and bewitchments with which she
was charged, and most of which she denied; saying, that she had merely
lain Ann Stannidge's child on her skirt, but had done it no harm, and that
when the mother had burnt the little one's hair and nail parings, and she,
Ann Baker, had gone in to the house in great pain and suffering, she knew
nothing whatever of this burning, but that she was sick and knew not
whither she went. Of the Rutland case all she knew was, that when she came
back from Northamptonshire, whither she had gone three years ago, two good
wives had told her that my young Lord Henry was dead, and that there was a
glove of the said Lord buried underground, and that "as his glove did rot
and wast, so did the liver of the young Lord rot and wast;" and that her
spirit was a good spirit and in the shape of a white dog. The tract does
not inform us what was done with these three wretched women. The two
Flowers were hanged, the old mother having died as I have said: but
whether the untimely death of a sickly lad was revenged by more innocent
blood than this remains unknown. The death-sacrifices of savages, the
witches of Africa, and the Red Indian "Medicine-men," are not so very far
removed from our own forefathers that we should quite ignore the likeness
between them and the recent past at home.