At Bury St. Edmonds, in the county of Suffolk, a remarkable "Tryal of
witches" was held on the tenth day of March, 1664, before Sir Matthew
Hale, Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. Rose Cullender and Amy
Duny, both widows and both of Leystoff, were indicted for bewitching
Elizabeth and Ann Durent, Jane Bocking, Susan Chandler, William Durent,
and Elizabeth and Deborah Pacy. William Durent, being an infant, was sworn
by grace of his mother Dorothy, and she deposed that some little time ago,
having occasion to go from home, she desired Amy, who was her neighbour,
to look after her child, but expressly forbade her to suckle it in her
absence. When asked by the court why she gave this caution to an old woman
far past the age of performing such an office, Dorothy answered that Amy
had long had the character of a witch who might suckle the devil himself
or any of his imps; and that moreover old women were apt to give the
breast to a crying child, to please it during its mother's absence; a
habit that made the children ill. But it seems that Amy disobeyed her, for
when she came home the old woman told her that she had given the breast to
her infant, which made Dorothy very cross, and a high quarrel ensued. And
that very night her child was taken with "strange fits of swounding," and
was held in such a terrible manner that she expected to lose it every
moment. Not knowing what to do or where to get it relief, she went to a
certain Doctor Jacob, well known through the country for skill in helping
children that were bewitched, and this Dr. Jacob advised her to hang up
the child's blanket in the chimney corner all the day, and to put the
child into it at night, and not be afraid at anything she might see, but
to throw it at once into the fire. Dorothy did as she was bid, and when
she took the blanket from the chimney-corner, down fell a great toad,
"which ran up and down the hearth, and she having a young youth only with
her in the House, desired him to catch the Toad and throw it into the
Fire; which the youth did accordingly, and held it there with the Tongs;
and as soon as it was in the Fire it made a great and horrible noise, and
after a space there was a flashing in the Fire like Gunpowder, making a
noise like the discharge of a Pistol, and thereupon the Toad was no more
seen nor heard." But Amy Duny sat by her fireside all smirched and
scorched, and in revenge bewitched the little daughter Elizabeth to death,
and further afflicted Dorothy herself with a lameness in both her legs, so
that she was forced to go upon crutches. About which the strangest thing
was, that though she had gone on them for three years now, no sooner was
Amy Duny condemned than she cast them away and went home without them, "to
the great admiration of all persons." This was the first count completed.
The second was made by Samuel Pacy, "a Merchant of Leystoff aforesaid (a
Man who carried himself with so much soberness during the Tryal, from whom
proceeded no words either of Passion or Malice, though his Children were
so greatly Afflicted)," on behalf of his daughters, Elizabeth and
Deborah; the one aged about eleven, the other nine. Elizabeth had fits.
She remained as one wholly senseless or in a deep sleep, the only sign of
life being that, as she lay on cushions in the court, her stomach was
raised to a great height on the drawing of her breath. After she had
remained there for some time she came somewhat to herself, and then "laid
her Head on the Bar of the Court with a Cushion under it, and her hand and
her Apron upon that;" when Amy Duny was brought privately to touch her.
She had no sooner done so than the child, although not seeing her,
suddenly leaped up and caught her by the hand and face, and scratched her
till the blood came: after which she was easier. Samuel deposed that his
younger daughter, Deborah, was suddenly taken with a lameness in her legs,
which continued from the 10th to the 17th of October; when the day, being
fair and sunshiny, she desired to be carried to the east part of the
house, and then set upon a bank which looks towards the sea. While sitting
there, came Amy Duny to buy some herrings; but being denied she went away
grumbling, and on the instant "the Child was taken with the most violent
Fits, feeling most extream Pain in her Stomach, like the pricking of Pins,
and shreeking out in a most dreadful manner, like unto a Whelp, and not
like unto a sensible Creature." The doctor, not understanding this
disorder, and Amy Duny being under ill fame for a witch, Samuel Pacy
caused her to be set in the stocks, as the most powerful remedy he knew of
for his child's disorder. Being in the stocks, a neighbour told her that
she was suspected of being the cause of Mr. Pacy's trouble: whereupon Amy
answered, "Mr. Pacy keeps a great stir about his Child; let him stay until
he has done as much by his Children as I have by mine." And being further
examined what she had done to her children, she answered, "That she had
been fain to open her Child's Mouth with a Tap to give it victuals." When,
therefore, Elizabeth, the elder girl, fell ill within two days after this,
and could by no means be made to open her mouth without a good-sized tap
being put into it, the thing was certain, and might no longer be
gainsayed. And when they both vomited crooked pins, and as many as forty
broad-headed nails, and were deprived of sight and hearing, and cried out
perpetually against Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, and could not be got to
say the names "Jesus," "Lord," or "Christ," but when they came to "Satan"
or "Devil," would clap their fingers on the book (the New Testament),
crying out, "This bites, but makes me speak right well," what sane person
could doubt the truth? Other strange things beside happened to them. They
used to see creatures of the appearance of mice run up and down the house,
and one of them "suddainly snapt one with the Tongs, and threw it into the
Fire, and it screeched out like a Rat." At another time a thing like a bee
flew into Deborah's face, and would have got into her mouth, had she not
gone shrieking into the house; when, with much apparent pain and effort,
she brought up a twopenny nail with a broad head, which she said the bee
had forced into her mouth. Again, another time, Elizabeth cried out that
she saw a mouse under the table, which she caught up in her apron and
flung into the fire. Deponent, her aunt, confessed that she saw nothing in
the child's hand, nevertheless the fire flashed as if gunpowder had been
flung in; also "at another time, the said Child being speechless, but
otherwise of perfect understanding, ran round about the House, holding
her Apron, crying 'Hush, hush,' as if there had been Poultry in the House;
but this Deponent could perceive nothing; but at last she saw the Child
stoop as if she had catch't at something, and put it into her Apron, and
afterwards made as if she had thrown it into the Fire; but this Deponent
could not discover any thing; but the Child afterwards being restored to
her speech, she, this Deponent, demanded of her what she saw at the time
she used such a posture? who answered, That she saw a Duck."
Others deposed to the same kind of things: as Edmund Durent, father to the
girl Ann, whom Rose Cullender had bewitched--also because denied the right
of buying herrings; and Diana Bocking, mother to Jane likewise afflicted
with crooked pins and tenpenny nails; and Mary Chandler, mother of Susan,
who was stricken blind and dumb, and had the plague of pins upon her too,
and who cried out "in a miserable manner, 'Burn her, burn her,'" which
were all the words she could speak, and which meant that poor old Rose was
to be burnt that Susan Chandler might be dispossessed. And there was Dr.
Brown, of Norwich, a person of great knowledge, who gave it as his
deliberate opinion that the girls were bewitched, every one of them, and
that "the Devil in such cases did work upon the Bodies of Men and Women
upon a Natural Foundation, (that is) to stir up and excite such Humours
superabounding in their Bodies to a great Excess, whereby he did in an
Extraordinary Manner Afflict them with such Distempers as their Bodies
were most subject to, as particularly appeared in these Children; for he
considered that these swooning Fits were Natural, and nothing else but
that they call the Mother, but only heightened to a great excess by the
subtilty of the Devil co-operating with the Malice of these which we term
Witches, at whose instance he doth these Villanies." Such an argument as
this was then held quite as pertinent and irresistible as would now be the
evidence of the microscope and the test of chemical experiment. It is
refreshing, in the midst of all this wild nonsense, to find that some
gentlemen--Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, and Mr. Serjeant Keeling,
who had been directed by the Lord Chief Justice to make an experiment with
these girls--openly protested against the whole thing, affirming it to be
an imposture from first to last; and that when the children covered up
their heads in their aprons, and shrieked and writhed when Rose Cullender
or Amy Duny touched them, they did it in full possession of their senses,
and perfectly understanding what they were about. For when they tried them
with other women whom they made believe were the two, cried out on, and
took care that their eyes were held, so that they should not see, the
children shrieked and howled, and went off into their fits all the same;
which double experiment satisfied the gentlemen of the fraudulent
character of it all. But this little nucleus of rationality was not strong
enough to disperse the thick darkness gathered round the minds of all
present--gathered round the mind of even Sir Thomas Brown and the "good"
Sir Matthew Hale; and when one witness had deposed that his cart had stuck
fast between some posts, and that the haymakers could not unload the hay
until the next morning, because Rose Cullender had threatened him; and
another that his pigs and cattle died in a most extraordinary manner, and
he himself swarmed with vermin which he could not get rid of, because he
also had been threatened by her; and a third that she had lost her geese
because Amy Duny had said she should; and that a chimney had fallen down
because Amy Duny had said it would--when all these things had been sworn
to and proved, then the minds of the judge and jury admitted of no further
doubt. Amy Duny and Rose Cullender were brought in guilty, and hanged at
Cambridge on Monday, March 17, confessing nothing.
"The next morning the children came with their Parents to the Lodgings of
the Lord Chief Justice, and were in as good Health as ever they were in
their lives, being restored within half an hour after the witches were
convicted." A fact then sufficiently conclusive, but which now is the
strongest proof that could be offered of the wicked deception of the whole
matter.