Mr. May Hill, minister of Beckington, in Somersetshire (near Frome), had a
servant, one Mary Hill, whom Satan and the malice of his servants had
grievously bewitched. Mr. Baxter had brought to him a bag of iron, nails,
and brass which the girl had vomited, and he kept some of them to show his
friends. "Nails about three or four inches long, doubled, crooked at the
end, and pieces of old Brass doubled, about an Inch broad and two Inches
long, with crooked edges," all of which Mary had brought up, together with
about two hundred crooked pins. Elizabeth Carrier was first committed on
the charge of having bewitched her; but a fortnight after, Mary, whom this
sacrifice had temporarily appeased, went back to her old ways, and began
to vomit nails and pieces of nails, brass, and handles of spoons, and so
continued to do for six months and more; all the while crying out against
Margery Coombes and Ann More, who, she said, appeared to her and tormented
her. These two poor creatures were immediately apprehended and committed
to the county gaol; but Margery died as soon as she was imprisoned: and
when my Lord Chief Justice Holt came to try old Ann, he said there was not
sufficient evidence against her, so directed the jury to acquit her. But
the maid was worse than ever after this acquittal, and took to vomiting
pieces of glass, and several pieces of bread and butter besmeared with a
poisonous matter, adjudged to be white mercury, and a great board nail,
and, in short, Mr. May Hill and the neighbours did not know what she might
not throw up at last, her mouth was so capacious, and the space against
her gums so flexible. But as it was observed that she never vomited these
things save in the morning, and that in the afternoon she was quiet; and
when, upon inquiry, it was found that she always slept with her mouth wide
open, and slept so soundly, that she could not be awakened by pulling, or
jogging, or calling; then Mr. Hill commanded that some one should sit up
with her, and keep her mouth rigidly and pertinaciously shut. And when
they did this she vomited nothing, for the witches had not been able to
convey their trash into her mouth. This experiment was satisfactorily
tried for thirteen nights; but as soon as she was left to sleep by
herself, and with her mouth open, the wicked witches were sure to come to
her and force all kinds of trash into it. But at last she wearied of her
work; and, Sir John Holt not holding out much inducement to ill-tempered
young women to declare themselves possessed because they had a
disagreeable neighbour or two, she owned herself quite cured, and no more
was heard of her fits or her nails.
Poor old Widow Chambers,[154] of Upaston, in Suffolk, "a diligent,
industrious, poor woman," was accused of witchcraft, upon what grounds
does not appear. "After she had been walk'd betwixt two," and, we may
naturally suppose, pressed and plied with questions, she became confused
and overwrought, and began to confess a great many things of herself. She
said that she had killed both her husband and Lady Blois, though the last
had died a fair and evident death, "without any Hurt from that poor
Woman:" and then some, to make trial of her wits, asked her if she had not
killed such and such persons then living? to which old Widow Chambers
maundered out yes, she had killed them sure enough. She was committed to
Beccles Gaol, even after this; but died before her trial, happily for her.
This was in 1693. The following year was a busy one for the witch-finders,
but fortunate for such of the witches as came before Lord Chief Justice
Holt, a man of clear, well-balanced mind, evidently not given to
superstitious beliefs, or to much veneration for the Black Art. Mother
Munnings, of Hartis, in Suffolk, was one of those brought before him at
Bury St. Edmunds. She came with a bad character enough, accused of
bewitching men to their death, spoiling brewings and churnings, and
hurting cattle and corn--of being, in fact, a terrible pest to the whole
neighbourhood. She killed Thomas Pannel her landlord, who had offended her
by a rather summary method of ejectment, namely, taking her door off the
hinges, since he could not get her out of his house any other way. Mother
Munnings was angry: who would not have been? "Go thy way," she cried to
him passionately; "thy Nose shall lie upward in the Churchyard before
Saturday next." This was enough. Thomas Pannel sickened on Monday and died
on Tuesday, and was buried within the week according to her word. That
this was true was attested by a certain witness, a doctor, who said also
that Mother Munnings "was a dangerous woman: she could touch the Line of
Life." Mother Munnings had an imp, a thing like a polecat; and a man swore
that one night, coming from the alehouse--a rather important
circumstance--he saw her lift out of her basket two imps, a black one and
a white; and it was well known that Sarah Wager was taken both dumb and
lame after a quarrel with her, and was in that condition even at the time
of trial. But in the face of all these tremendous accusations the Lord
Chief Justice Holt directed the jury to bring her in Not Guilty, and poor
old Mother Munnings lived in peace and quietness for about two years
longer, doing no harm to anybody, and when dying declaring her innocence.
Dr. Hutchinson gives a very rational, but somewhat quaint, explanation of
two of the charges against her. On the death of her landlord, he says,
that he, Thomas Pannel, "was a consumptive spent Man, and the Words not
exactly as they swore them, and the whole Thing 17 years before;" and as
to the imps--"the White Imp is believed to have been a Lock of Wool taken
out of her Basket to spin; and its Shadow, it is supposed, was the Black
one." Not an impossibility with an ignorant country clown, reeling home
half drunk from the alehouse, and disposed to make a miracle out of the
plainest matter before him seen through a witch's window.
At the Ipswich assizes of that same year the Lord Chief Justice had to
hold the sword of judgment unsheathed between Margaret Elnore and her
accusers. Margaret belonged to a family of witches, her grandmother and
her aunt having been both hanged for that rational offence; and now, when
Mrs. Rudge had been for three years in a languishing condition--ever since
her husband had refused to take Elnore for his tenant--what so likely as
that she was bewitched, and that the enraged witch and relative of witches
had done it? Besides, women who had quarrelled with Margaret had found
themselves suddenly covered with vermin, not at all due to their own
uncleanly habits, but to the diabolical power of old Elnore, who would
send lice or locusts, disease or death, just as it suited her. For she had
eight or nine imps, and she was plainly branded with the witch marks. Lord
Chief Justice Holt pooh-poohed the imps and the vermin, and directed again
a verdict of Not Guilty. So Margaret Elnore was suffered to live out the
natural term of her life, and Mrs. Rudge recovered her health for a
certain time; but--some years after Margaret was peaceably laid in her
grave--"fell again into the same Kind of Pains (supposed from the Salt
Humour), and died of the same Distemper."
The next year Mary Guy was tried at Launceston for bewitching Philadelphia
Row, who swore to her apparition perpetually troubling her, and who had
the uncomfortable habit of vomiting pins, straws, and feathers. But the
Lord Chief Justice turned a deaf ear to Philadelphia Row also, and Mary
Guy was acquitted. So was Elizabeth Horner, who, in 1696, was brought
before him at Exeter, charged with having bewitched three children
belonging to William Bovet, whereof one was dead: "another had her Legs
twisted, and yet from her Hands and Knees she would spring Five Foot
high." The children brought up crooked pins, and were grievously bitten,
and pinched, and pricked, and bruised--the marks of all this ill usage
appearing plainly on the flesh; and they swore that Bess Horner's head
would go off her shoulders and walk quietly into their stomachs: and the
mother deposed "that one of them walked up a smooth plastered Wall, till
her Feet were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it." This she did
five or six times, laughing and saying that Bess Horner held her up. Old
Bess had a kind of wart or excrescence on her shoulder, which William
Bovet's children said was her witch-mark, and where her imp--a
toad--sucked; but the Lord Chief Justice shook his head, and Bess Horner
was let to live on in her own way, taking off her head at will, and
sending it into children's bodies, and nourishing a devil in shape of a
toad on her shoulder--the law and judgment not interposing. The Lord Chief
Justice had very many cases of witchcraft brought before him--about eleven
places in all being supposed to be so infected--but he brought in every
one "not guilty."
One of the most celebrated cases tried by him was that of Richard
Hathaway, who came before him at the Guildford Assize of 1701 with a
pitiful tale of possession and bewitchment, all owing to Sarah Morduck, of
Southwark, in which parish he too was living as apprentice to Thomas
Wellyn, blacksmith. Richard had fits and convulsions, in all probability
real enough, for he was sent to the hospital, where he lay for seven weeks
in a pitiable condition, sometimes bent double, and at all times strangely
and fearfully contorted. This began in September, 1690,[155] he said, when
the first appearances of being bewitched manifested themselves. For then
he vomited crooked pins in great numbers, and lumps of tin, and loose
nails, and nut-shells, and stones; and he foamed at the mouth; and bowed
himself into an arch; and lay as if dead; and barked like a dog; and burnt
as if with fire; and in the midst of all signed that Sarah Morduck had
bewitched him, and that he should never be well till he had "scratched"
her. So she was brought to him to be scratched; after which he ate and
drank and had his sight and was perfectly well for six weeks together.
Then he fell ill again, and must needs scratch her for this attack; and
this time with more unction, for Sarah "was assaulted in her own House,
and grievously abused; her Hair and Face torn; she was kicked, thrown to
the Ground, stamped on, and threatened to be put into a Horse Pond, to be
tried by Swimming, and very hardly escaped with her Life." To avoid being
absolutely murdered, she left Southwark and went into London; but still
was not safe, for she was constantly being followed in the streets, and
was often in danger of being pulled to pieces by a mob which credited all
that Richard Hathaway said and did. In 1701 she was taken before one Sir
Thomas Lane, who ordered her to be stript and searched, and let Hathaway
loose again on her to scratch her. After which he was well as before; and
then Sarah Morduck was committed, and prayers were offered up in the
churches for Hathaway, and collections made for him in the congregations,
and six or seven pounds at a time got for him, besides various other sums,
to bear his charges at the Assizes, and indemnify him for the evil the
witch had inflicted. At the Assizes (Guildford, July, 1701) Sarah Morduck
was brought out of prison to be tried for her life by the Lord Chief
Justice: with the usual result in his trials of witches: she was released,
but Hathaway took her place, and was committed to the Marshalsea as a
cheat and impostor, lying, for the first part of the time, well and
hearty, but afterwards falling into his fits again as if bewitched. He was
then experimented with; given another woman to scratch, under the idea
that it was Sarah; whom he scratched quite contentedly, and as well after
he had done so. When he found out his mistake he was blind and dumb again.
But now, it being specially desired to know the truth, when he brought up
his crooked pins, his hands were kept carefully out of his pockets, which
then were searched, and found plentifully supplied; and all the strange
noises which had been heard to issue out of his bed were discovered to
have been made by his own feet scratching the bedposts; and his miraculous
fasting was proved a cheat, for Mrs. Kensy's maid, who had got into his
confidence by a stratagem, brought him meat and drink privately, and Mr.
Kensy and his friends peeping through a private hole saw him eat it quite
composedly. So one by one his pretences were destroyed, and he was openly
convicted of cozening and imposture. The Lord Chief Justice thought this a
more cognizable crime than witchcraft, and condemned Richard Hathaway to
be imprisoned for a year, and to stand in the pillory thrice during the
period. Thus he was made a warning to all hysterical youths and maidens
who took to possession as a good trade, and who liked the prayers of the
faithful, and the money of the credulous, and the luxury of ill-treating
any one specially spited, and the attentions of the gentry, and the pity
of the commonalty, and all manner of petting and cossiting better than
coarse hard fare and the scanty pleasures wrung from horny-handed labour.
This Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Holt, may be taken as one of the
greatest, if of the less noisy and notorious, benefactors of England
known; setting himself so firmly as he did against this cruel and debasing
superstition, and so manfully upholding the claims of humanity and common
sense against all the "possibilities" of idealism, and the wild errings of
credulity. From his time the witch madness sensibly declined, and folks
woke gradually to the possession of their ordinary faculties.