Dr. Lamb, Buckingham's domestic physician in times past, and his maid Anne
Bodenham, both met with a tragical fate, though not in the same year, for
Dr. Lamb was brutally murdered for a conjuror and wizard by a mob in 1640,
while Anne Bodenham was not executed until 1653. That Lamb was a terrible
necromancer is testified by Richard Baxter, in his 'World of Spirits,' a
book "written for the conviction of Sadducees and Infidels," but which now
would convince none but the weak or half crazed of anything beyond Richard
Baxter's own exceeding credulity and want of critical faculty. His story
of Dr. Lamb's necromancy is so curious, it had better be given verbatim,
for to translate would be to ruin it.
"Dr. Lamb, who was killed by the Mob for a Conjuror about 1640, met one
Morning Sir Miles Sands and Mr. Barbor in the Street, and invited them to
go and drink their Mornings Draught at his House: Discoursing about his
Art, he told them that if they would hold their Tongues, and their Hands
from medling with any thing, he would shew them some Sport. So falling to
his Practice in the middle of the Room springs up a Tree; sone after
appeared three little Fellows, with Axes on their Shoulders, and Baskets
in their Hands, who presently fell to work, cut down the Tree, and carried
all away. But Mr. Barbor observing one Chip to fall on his Velvet Coat, he
slips it into his Pocket, That Night when he and his Family were in Bed,
and asleep, all the Doors and Windows in the House opened and clattered,
so as to awaken and affright them all. His Wife said, _Husband, you told
me you was at Dr. Lamb's this Day, and I fear you medled with something_.
He replied, _I put a Chip into my Pocket_. _I pray you_, said she, _fling
it out, or we shall have no Quiet_. He did so, and all the Windows and
Doors were presently shut, and all quiet, so they went to sleep."
With such powers of conjuration and sorcery as these, it is not surprising
if Dr. Lamb's character tainted that of Anne Bodenham his maid; for the
very fact of their living together under the same roof was inimical enough
to Anne's reputation. We hear nothing of her for some years, beyond that
she lived near New Sarum, was married to one Edward Bodenham, "clothyer,"
and that she was eighty years of age at the time of her trial. So at least
says Edmund Bower, in his "Doctor Lamb revived." But her getting into
trouble at all proves that she had long lived under the suspicion of
commonly practising witchcraft and sorcery; for Anne Styles, the accuser,
had been backwards and forwards to her on her own account scores of times,
and thought nothing of it; neither was it considered wonderful when Mr.
Mason, son-in-law of Richard Goddard, Anne Styles's master, sent her to
Anne Bodenham to learn now their lawsuit would turn. Bodenham, who had a
knack of "foretelling things to come, and helping men to their stolen
goods, and other such like feats," expressed no surprise, but at once
began her conjurations. "She took her staff, and there drew it about the
house, making a kinde of a Circle, and then took a book, and carrying it
over the Circle with her hands, and taking a green glasse, did lay it upon
the book, and placed in the Circle an earthern Pan of Coals, wherein she
threw something, which burning caused a very noisome stink, and told the
Maid she should not be afraid of what she should then see, for now they
would come (they are the words she used), and so calling Belzebub,
Tormentor, Satan, and Lucifer appear, there suddenly arose a very high
wind, which made the house shake, and presently the back door of the house
flying open, there came five Spirits, as the Maid supposed, in the
likenesse of ragged Boyes, some bigger than others, and ran about the
House, where she had drawn the staff: and the witch threw down upon the
ground crums of bread, which the Spirits picked up, and leapt over the Pan
of Coals oftentimes, which she set in the midst of the Circle, and a Dog
and a Cat of the witches danced with them; and after some time the witch
looked again in her book, and threw some great white Seeds upon the
ground, which the said Spirits picked up, and so in a short time the wind
was laid and the witch going forth at the back door the Spirits vanished."
After which Anne told the girl that Mr. Mason should demand fifteen
hundred pounds, and one hundred and fifty pounds per annum of Mr. Goddard,
and if it was denied he was to take the law and prosecute. For all which
Anne Bodenham received the sum of three shillings: little enough too,
considering the charges she must have been at for noisome roots and magic
lanthorns, not to speak of the chance of being haled off to prison
whenever the maid Anne Styles might choose to accuse her.
Another time Anne Styles was sent to her by Mrs. Goddard, to find where
was hidden the poison which she said her two young step-daughters were
designing to give her, but which Anne Styles herself had bought, as she
said, by the witch's request. This Anne Bodenham denied. The witch took
her stick as before, going through the same forms of conjuration; when on
her adjuring "Belzebub, Tormentor, Lucifer, Satan," to appear, there came
out of the mist first a little boy, who then turned into a snake, and then
into "a shagged dog with great eyes, which went about in the Circle." And
after she had burnt her noisome herbs again, and looked in her Magic
book--her Book of Charms as she called it--she took a glass and showed in
that "Mistress Sarah Goddard's Chamber, the colour of the Curtains, and
the bed turned up the wrong way, and under that part of the bed where the
Bolster laye she shewed the poison in a white paper." It was no discredit
to maid or witch that this poisoning matter was found a mere suspicion and
delusion, and that the young ladies never designed to poison their
mother-in-law; though she, on the other hand, sent to Bodenham for charms
and poisons against them. This time Anne got vervain and dill, which the
little ragged boys (spectres, or spirits, or imps) gathered for her, in
return for which she threw them bread which they ate, dancing about, then
vanished on their mistress reading in her book. The witch gave the maid
the leaves powdered, and dried--one packet of each--while, in a third
packet, she put the parings of her nails; all of which the maid was to
give to her mistress. The powder was to be put into Mistresses Sarah and
Anne Goddard's drink or broth, to give them hideous indigestion rather too
coarsely expressed for modern reading; the leaves were to rub about the
rim of the pot, to make their teeth fall out of their heads; and the
paring of the nails to make them drunk and mad. But Mrs. Goddard only
laughed when she got these charms, and said "they were brave things:" she
did not use them, luckily for her; though the young ladies would not have
been much the worse, save for the white poison before mentioned.
Anne Bodenham had taken a great fancy to this servant girl, and wanted her
to live with her, telling her that she would teach her all she knew, and
enable her to do as she did; asking her, too, whether she would go to
London high or low: for if high she should be carried through the air and
be there in two hours, if low she should be taken at Sutton's town end,
and before, "unless she had help." When she thus sought to seduce the
girl, Anne Styles asked what she could do, whereupon Bodenham
incontinently appeared in the form of a great black cat, and lay along by
the chimney; but the girl being much frightened, she appeared in her own
shape again, and tempted her no more. But first, before she would let her
go, she made her swear to seal with her body and blood a vow that she
would never discover what she had seen; so she took her forefinger and
pricked it, and filled a pen with the blood, and made her write in a book,
one of the imps--like "great boys with long shagged black hair," this
time--having his hand or claw on the witch's, while Anne Styles wrote. And
when she had done writing, the witch said "Amen," and the maid said
"Amen," and the spirits said "Amen" each: and the spirit gave the witch a
bit of silver for the maid, which he first bit. The maid's hand touched
his, and she found that his was cold. Then Bodenham stuck two pins in her
head-dress, which she bid her keep, and be gone; saying, "I will vex the
Gentlewoman well enough, as I did the man in Clarington Park; which I made
walk about with a bundle of Pales on his back all night in a pond of
water, and could not lay them down till the next morning." The piece of
silver, and the hole in her forefinger, the maid showed the judge and jury
in the trial; and both were held to be conclusive evidence against Dr.
Lamb's unfortunate "Darling." How far Anne Styles may be believed is not
difficult to determine; for as to the conjurations about poisoning Mrs.
Goddard, it came out that she, the maid, had gone to the apothecary's for
an ounce of arsenic; and then set abroad the report that the two young
ladies had bought it for the purpose of poisoning their step-mother. As
the young ladies were not disposed to sit down quietly under this
suspicion, they had the report sifted to the bottom, and Anne Styles fled
in fear; which was the meaning of the witch's demanding how she would like
to go to London--high or low--by witch's art, or justice's power. Mr.
Chandler, Mr. Goddard's son-in-law, pursued her, and overtook her at
Sutton-town end; when, to save herself from the unpleasant consequences of
her various misdeeds, beginning with stealing a silver spoon and ending
with buying arsenic, she made this "confession," which was safety to her
but death to old Anne. Anne earnestly and passionately denied every word
the girl said: whereupon Anne Styles, to give greater colour to her story,
fell into fits, so strong that six men could not hold her. She was drawn
up high into the air--so at least runs the report--her feet as high as the
spectators' breasts; and she had scuffles with a black man with no head,
who came and tumbled her about, as a little boy deposed. The little boy
was sleeping in the same room with her, and he said that the black spirit
came to her, and wanted her soul, but the maid answered her soul was none
of hers to give; that he had got her blood already, but should never have
her soul; and after a tumbling and throwing of her about rarely, he
vanished away. At another time the witch was brought to the maid suddenly,
when she instantly closed her eyes and fell back in so deep a sleep that
they could not by any means awaken her; but so soon as the witch had gone,
she woke up of herself, and was quite well. Anne Bodenham was condemned to
die, and there was no help for her; but when sentence was passed, Anne
Styles fell to bitter weeping and wailing, lamenting her own wickedness,
and willing that the witch should be reprieved, if possible to the law.
This was taken as a sign of her sweet and loving Christian spirit of
forgiveness; we, who read such signs more clearly by the light of a better
knowledge, know that it meant simply the weak pity of a selfish
conscience, grieving for its sin, yet afraid to retract and make amends.
Beside all this evidence, and its lies, Anne Bodenham had a tame toad
which she wore in a green bag round her neck; and she had a great deal of
natural clairvoyance and mesmeric power; and she was evidently a highly
superstitious woman, who believed in her own powers, and was not unwilling
to aid them by a little extra supernaturalism and good mechanical tricks.
But she would confess to no witchcraft; knew nothing of a Red Book half
written over in blood, which red book with its bloody writing contained a
catalogue of those who had sold themselves to the devil; though she
acknowledged that she had a Book of Charms, much as a servant maid of
to-day might have a Book of Dreams: and that she could say the Creed
backwards as well as forwards; and that she sometimes prayed to the
planet Jupiter. The time-honoured belief in astrology and the power of the
planets might well linger in the brain of an old country woman, who had a
smattering of knowledge far beyond her station, and who had dabbled in
mechanics and the art of conjuring; who could not, moreover, understand
her own sensitive condition; and who had the alternative, as one of the
witnesses said, of passing for a witch or a woman of God. The judge and
jury had a very distinct idea as to which category she ought to be placed
in; and fully believed what James Bower reports, that she could turn
herself into a "mastive Dog, a black Lyon, a white Bear, a Woolf, a
Monkey, a Horse, a Bull, and a Calf." Such a woman as this had no business
here on this solid earth, so she was hanged at Salisbury, 1653, dying very
hard and completely crazed. Before the hour came she wrote a letter to her
husband desiring him never to live in his own house again; and she asked
the woman who was to "shroud" her, to root up all her garden herbs and
flowers when she should be dead; and she clamoured for a knife to stick
into her heart; and she wanted to die drunk, calling for beer on her way
to execution, and giving her gaolers much trouble to hold her in at all;
and she would have no psalm sung, and no prayer read, and would forgive
none of them, but cursed them all fiercely as she stood on the rungs of
the ladder despairing and defying. So miserably she died, poor old wretch!
and Anne Styles never looked up again into the fair face of heaven without
the stain of blood across her hand, and the brand of Cain on her brow.