The Close of the Literary Controversy 334
Appendices 345
A. Pamphlet Literature 345
B. List of Persons Sentenced to Death for
Witchcraft during the Reign of James I 383
C. List of Cases of Witchcraft, 1558-1717,
with References to Sources and Literature 384
Index 421
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT.
It has been said by a thoughtful writer that the subject of witchcraft
has hardly received that place which it deserves in the history of
opinions. There has been, of course, a reason for this neglect--the fact
that the belief in witchcraft is no longer existent among intelligent
people and that its history, in consequence, seems to possess rather an
antiquarian than a living interest. No one can tell the story of the
witch trials of sixteenth and seventeenth century England without
digging up a buried past, and the process of exhumation is not always
pleasant. Yet the study of English witchcraft is more than an unsightly
exposure of a forgotten superstition. There were few aspects of
sixteenth and seventeenth century life that were not affected by the
ugly belief. It is quite impossible to grasp the social conditions, it
is impossible to understand the opinions, fears, and hopes of the men
and women who lived in Elizabethan and Stuart England, without some
knowledge of the part played in that age by witchcraft. It was a matter
that concerned all classes from the royal household to the ignorant
denizens of country villages. Privy councillors anxious about their
sovereign and thrifty peasants worrying over their crops, clergymen
alert to detect the Devil in their own parishes, medical quacks eager to
profit by the fear of evil women, justices of the peace zealous to beat
down the works of Satan--all classes, indeed--believed more or less
sincerely in the dangerous powers of human creatures who had
surrendered themselves to the Evil One.
Witchcraft, in a general and vague sense, was something very old in
English history. In a more specific and limited sense it is a
comparatively modern phenomenon. This leads us to a definition of the
term. It is a definition that can be given adequately only in an
historical way. A group of closely related and somewhat ill defined
conceptions went far back. Some of them, indeed, were to be found in the
Old Testament, many of them in the Latin and Greek writers. The word
witchcraft itself belonged to Anglo-Saxon days. As early as the seventh
century Theodore of Tarsus imposed penances upon magicians and
enchanters, and the laws, from Alfred on, abound with mentions of
witchcraft.[1] From these passages the meaning of the word witch as used
by the early English may be fairly deduced. The word was the current
English term for one who used spells and charms, who was assisted by
evil spirits to accomplish certain ends. It will be seen that this is by
no means the whole meaning of the term in later times. Nothing is yet
said about the transformation of witches into other shapes, and there is
no mention of a compact, implicit or otherwise, with the Devil; there is
no allusion to the nocturnal meetings of the Devil's worshippers and to
the orgies that took place upon those occasions; there is no elaborate
and systematic theological explanation of human relations with demons.
But these notions were to reach England soon enough. Already there were
germinating in southern Europe ideas out of which the completer notions
were to spring. As early as the close of the ninth century certain
Byzantine traditions were being introduced into the West. There were
legends of men who had made written compacts with the Devil, men whom he
promised to assist in this world in return for their souls in the
next.[2] But, while such stories were current throughout the Middle
Ages, the notion behind them does not seem to have been connected with
the other features of what was to make up the idea of witchcraft until
about the middle of the fourteenth century. It was about that time that
the belief in the "Sabbat" or nocturnal assembly of the witches made its
appearance.[3] The belief grew up that witches rode through the air to
these meetings, that they renounced Christ and engaged in foul forms of
homage to Satan. Lea tells us that towards the close of the century the
University of Paris formulated the theory that a pact with Satan was
inherent in all magic, and judges began to connect this pact with the
old belief in night riders through the air. The countless confessions
that resulted from the carefully framed questions of the judges served
to develop and systematize the theory of the subject. The witch was much
more than a sorcerer. Sorcerers had been those who, through the aid of
evil spirits, by the use of certain words or of representations of
persons or things produced changes above the ordinary course of nature.
"The witch," says Lea, "has abandoned Christianity, has renounced her
baptism, has worshipped Satan as her God, has surrendered herself to
him, body and soul, and exists only to be his instrument in working the
evil to her fellow creatures which he cannot accomplish without a human
agent."[4] This was the final and definite notion of a witch. It was the
conception that controlled European opinion on the subject from the
latter part of the fourteenth to the close of the seventeenth century.
It was, as has been seen, an elaborate theological notion that had grown
out of the comparatively simple and vague ideas to be found in the
scriptural and classical writers.
It may well be doubted whether this definite and intricate theological
notion of witchcraft reached England so early as the fourteenth century.
Certainly not until a good deal later--if negative evidence is at all
trustworthy--was a clear distinction made between sorcery and
witchcraft. The witches searched for by Henry IV, the professor of
divinity, the friar, the clerk, and the witch of Eye, who were hurried
before the Council of Henry VI, that unfortunate Duchess of Gloucester
who had to walk the streets of London, the Duchess of Bedford, the
conspirators against Edward IV who were supposed to use magic, the
unlucky mistress of Edward IV--none of these who through the course of
two centuries were charged with magical misdeeds were, so far as we
know, accused of those dreadful relations with the Devil, the nauseating
details of which fill out the later narratives of witch history.
The truth seems to be that the idea of witchcraft was not very clearly
defined and differentiated in the minds of ordinary Englishmen until
after the beginning of legislation upon the subject. It is not
impossible that there were English theologians who could have set forth
the complete philosophy of the belief, but to the average mind sorcery,
conjuration, enchantment, and witchcraft were but evil ways of mastering
nature. All that was changed when laws were passed. With legislation
came greatly increased numbers of accusations; with accusations and
executions came treatises and theory. Continental writers were
consulted, and the whole system and science of the subject were soon
elaborated for all who read.
With the earlier period, which has been sketched merely by way of
definition, this monograph cannot attempt to deal. It limits itself to a
narrative of the witch trials, and incidentally of opinion as to
witchcraft, after there was definite legislation by Parliament. The
statute of the fifth year of Elizabeth's reign marks a point in the
history of the judicial persecution at which an account may very
naturally begin. The year 1558 has been selected as the date because
from the very opening of the reign which was to be signalized by the
passing of that statute and was to be characterized by a serious effort
to enforce it, the persecution was preparing.
Up to that time the crime of sorcery had been dealt with in a few early
instances by the common-law courts, occasionally (where politics were
involved) by the privy council, but more usually, it is probable, by the
church. This, indeed, may easily be illustrated from the works of law.
Britton and Fleta include an inquiry about sorcerers as one of the
articles of the sheriff's tourn. A note upon Britton, however, declares
that it is for the ecclesiastical court to try such offenders and to
deliver them to be put to death in the king's court, but that the king
himself may proceed against them if he pleases.[5] While there is some
overlapping of procedure implied by this, the confusion seems to have
been yet greater in actual practice. A brief narrative of some cases
prior to 1558 will illustrate the strangely unsettled state of
procedure. Pollock and Maitland relate several trials to be found in the
early pleas. In 1209 one woman accused another of sorcery in the king's
court and the defendant cleared herself by the ordeal. In 1279 a man
accused of killing a witch who assaulted him in his house was fined, but
only because he had fled away. Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and
treasurer of Edward I, was accused of sorcery and homage to Satan and
cleared himself with the compurgators. In 1325 more than twenty men were
indicted and tried by the king's bench for murder by tormenting a waxen
image. All of them were acquitted. In 1371 there was brought before the
king's bench an inhabitant of Southwark who was charged with sorcery,
but he was finally discharged on swearing that he would never be a
sorcerer.[6]
It will be observed that these early cases were all of them tried in the
secular courts; but there is no reason to doubt that the ecclesiastical
courts were quite as active, and their zeal must have been quickened by
the statute of 1401, which in cases of heresy made the lay power their
executioner. It was at nearly the same time, however, that the charge of
sorcery began to be frequently used as a political weapon. In such
cases, of course, the accused was usually a person of influence and the
matter was tried in the council. It will be seen, then, that the crime
was one that might fall either under ecclesiastical or conciliar
jurisdiction and the particular circumstances usually determined finally
the jurisdiction. When Henry IV was informed that the diocese of Lincoln
was full of sorcerers, magicians, enchanters, necromancers, diviners,
and soothsayers, he sent a letter to the bishop requiring him to search
for sorcerers and to commit them to prison after conviction, or even
before, if it should seem expedient.[7] This was entrusting the matter
to the church, but the order was given by authority of the king, not
improbably after the matter had been discussed in the council. In the
reign of Henry VI conciliar and ecclesiastical authorities both took
part at different times and in different ways. Thomas Northfield, a
member of the Order of Preachers in Worcester and a professor of
divinity, was brought before the council, together with all suspected
matter belonging to him, and especially his books treating of sorcery.
Pike does not tell us the outcome.[8] In the same year there were
summoned before the council three humbler sorcerers, Margery Jourdemain,
John Virley, a cleric, and John Ashwell, a friar of the Order of the
Holy Cross. It would be hard to say whether the three were in any way
connected with political intrigue. It is possible that they were
suspected of sorcery against the sovereign. They were all, however,
dismissed on giving security.[9] It was only a few years after this
instance of conciliar jurisdiction that a much more important case was
turned over to the clergy. The story of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of
Gloucester, is a familiar one. It was determined by the enemies of Duke
Humphrey of Gloucester to attack him through his wife, who was believed
to be influential with the young king. The first move was made by
arresting a Roger Bolingbroke who had been connected with the duke and
the duchess, and who was said to be an astronomer or necromancer. It was
declared that he had cast the duchess's horoscope with a view to
ascertaining her chances to the throne. Bolingbroke made confession, and
Eleanor was then brought before "certayne bisshoppis of the kyngis." In
the mean time several lords, members of the privy council, were
authorized to "enquire of al maner tresons, sorcery, and alle othir
thyngis that myghte in eny wise ... concerne harmfulli the kyngis
persone."[10] Bolingbroke and a clergyman, Thomas Southwell, were
indicted of treason with the duchess as accessory. With them was accused
that Margery Jourdemain who had been released ten years before. Eleanor
was then reexamined before the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Norwich,
she was condemned as guilty, and required to walk barefoot through the
streets of London, which she "dede righte mekely." The rest of her life
she spent in a northern prison. Bolingbroke was executed as a traitor,
and Margery Jourdemain was burnt at Smithfield.[11]
The case of the Duchess of Bedford--another instance of the connection
between sorcery and political intrigue--fell naturally into the hands of
the council. It was believed by those who could understand in no other
way the king's infatuation that he had been bewitched by the mother of
the queen. The story was whispered from ear to ear until the duchess got
wind of it and complained to the council against her maligners. The
council declared her cleared of suspicion and ordered that the decision
should be "enacted of record."[12]
The charge of sorcery brought by the protector Richard of Gloucester
against Jane Shore, who had been the mistress of Edward IV, never came
to trial and in consequence illustrates neither ecclesiastical nor
conciliar jurisdiction. It is worthy of note however that the accusation
was preferred by the protector--who was soon to be Richard III--in the
council chamber.[13]
It will be seen that these cases prove very little as to procedure in
the matter of sorcery and witchcraft. They are cases that arose in a
disturbed period and that concerned chiefly people of note. That they
were tried before the bishops or before the privy council does not mean
that all such charges were brought into those courts. There must have
been less important cases that were never brought before the council or
the great ecclesiastical courts. It seems probable--to reason backward
from later practice--that less important trials were conducted almost
exclusively by the minor church courts.[14]
This would at first lead us to suspect that, when the state finally
began to legislate against witchcraft by statute, it was endeavoring to
wrest jurisdiction of the crime out of the hands of the church and to
put it into secular hands. Such a supposition, however, there is nothing
to justify. It seems probable, on the contrary, that the statute enacted
in the reign of Henry VIII was passed rather to support the church in
its struggle against sorcery and witchcraft than to limit its
jurisdiction in the matter. It was to assist in checking these
practitioners that the state stepped in. At another point in this
chapter we shall have occasion to note the great interest in sorcery and
all kindred subjects that was springing up over England, and we shall at
times observe some of the manifestations of this interest as well as
some of the causes for it. Here it is necessary only to urge the
importance of this interest as accounting for the passage of a
statute.[15]
Chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII states its purpose clearly: "Where,"
reads the preamble, "dyvers and sundrie persones unlawfully have devised
and practised Invocacions and conjuracions of Sprites, pretendyng by
suche meanes to understande and get Knowlege for their owne lucre in
what place treasure of golde and Silver shulde or mought be founde or
had ... and also have used and occupied wichecraftes, inchauntmentes and
sorceries to the distruccion of their neighbours persones and goodes." A
description was given of the methods practised, and it was enacted that
the use of any invocation or conjuration of spirits, witchcrafts,
enchantments, or sorceries should be considered felony.[16] It will be
observed that the law made no graduation of offences. Everything was
listed as felony. No later piece of legislation on the subject was so
sweeping in its severity.
The law remained on the statute-book only six years. In the early part
of the reign of Edward VI, when the protector Somerset was in power, a
policy of great leniency in respect to felonies was proposed. In
December of 1547 a bill was introduced into Parliament to repeal certain
statutes for treason and felony. "This bill being a matter of great
concern to every subject, a committee was appointed, consisting of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord chamberlain, the
Marquis of Dorset, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Southampton, the Bishops
of Ely, Lincoln, and Worcester, the Lords Cobham, Clinton, and
Wentworth, with certain of the king's learned council; all which
noblemen were appointed to meet a committee of the Commons ... in order
to treat and commune on the purport of the said bill."[17] The Commons,
it seems, had already prepared a bill of their own, but this they were
willing to drop and the Lords' measure with some amendments was finally
passed. It was under this wide repeal of felonies that chapter VIII of
33 Henry VIII was finally annulled. Whether the question of witchcraft
came up for special consideration or not, we are not informed. We do
know that the Bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Hereford, and Chichester,
took exception to some amendments that were inserted in the act of
repeal,[18] and it is not impossible that they were opposed to repealing
the act against witchcraft. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that
the church was resisting the encroachment of the state in the subject.
As a matter of fact it is probable that, in the general question of
repeal of felonies, the question of witchcraft received scant
attention. There is indeed an interesting story that seems to point in
that direction and that deserves repeating also as an illustration of
the protector's attitude towards the question. Edward Underhill gives
the narrative in his autobiography: "When we hade dyned, the maior sentt
to [two] off his offycers with me to seke Alene; whome we mett withalle
in Poles, and toke hym with us unto his chamber, wheare we founde
fygures sett to calke the nativetie off the kynge, and a jugementt
gevyne off his deathe, wheroff this folyshe wreche thoughte hymselfe so
sure thatt he and his conselars the papistes bruted it all over. The
kynge laye att Hamtone courte the same tyme, and me lord protector at
the Syone; unto whome I caryed this Alen, with his bokes off
conejuracyons, cearkles, and many thynges beloungynge to thatt dyvlyshe
art, wiche he affyrmed before me lorde was a lawfulle cyens [science],
for the statute agaynst souche was repealed. 'Thow folyshe knave! (sayde
me lorde) yff thou and all thatt be off thy cyens telle me what I shalle
do to-morow, I wylle geve the alle thatt I have'; commaundynge me to
cary hym unto the Tower." Alen was examined about his science and it was
discovered that he was "a very unlearned asse, and a sorcerer, for the
wiche he was worthye hangynge, sayde Mr. Recorde." He was however kept
in the Tower "about the space off a yere, and then by frendshipe
delyvered. So scapithe alwayes the weked."[19]
But the wicked were not long to escape. The beginning of Elizabeth's
reign saw a serious and successful effort to put on the statute-book
definite and severe penalties for conjuration, sorcery, witchcraft, and
related crimes. The question was taken up in the very first year of the
new reign and a bill was draughted.[20] It was not, however, until 1563
that the statute was finally passed. It was then enacted that those who
"shall use, practise, or exercise any Witchecrafte, Enchantment, Charme
or Sorcerie, whereby any person shall happen to bee killed or destroyed,
... their Concellors and Aidours, ... shall suffer paynes of Deathe as a
Felon or Felons." It was further declared that those by whose practices
any person was wasted, consumed, or lamed, should suffer for the first
offence one year's imprisonment and should be put in the pillory four
times. For the second offence death was the penalty. It was further
provided that those who by witchcraft presumed to discover treasure or
to find stolen property or to "provoke any person to unlawfull love"
should suffer a year's imprisonment and four appearances in the pillory.
With this law the history of the prosecution of witchcraft in England as
a secular crime may well begin. The question naturally arises, What was
the occasion of this law? How did it happen that just at this particular
time so drastic a measure was passed and put into operation? Fortunately
part of the evidence exists upon which to frame an answer. The English
churchmen who had been driven out of England during the Marian
persecution had many of them sojourned in Zurich and Geneva, where the
extirpation of witches was in full progress, and had talked over the
matter with eminent Continental theologians. With the accession of
Elizabeth these men returned to England in force and became prominent in
church and state, many of them receiving bishoprics. It is not possible
to show that they all were influential in putting through the statute of
the fifth year of Elizabeth. It is clear that one of them spoke out
plainly on the subject. It can hardly be doubted that he represented the
opinions of many other ecclesiastics who had come under the same
influences during their exile.[21] John Jewel was an Anglican of
Calvinistic sympathies who on his return to England at Elizabeth's
accession had been appointed Bishop of Salisbury. Within a short time he
came to occupy a prominent position in the court. He preached before the
Queen and accompanied her on a visit to Oxford. It was in the course of
one of his first sermons--somewhere between November of 1559 and March
of 1560[22]--that he laid before her his convictions on witchcraft. It
is, he tells her, "the horrible using of your poor subjects," that
forces him to speak. "This kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers)
within these few last years are marvellously increased within this your
grace's realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of
their wickedness. Your grace's subjects pine away even unto death, their
colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their
senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poor subjects' most humble petition
unto your highness is, that the laws touching such malefactors may be
put in due execution."
The church historian, Strype, conjectures that this sermon was the cause
of the law passed in the fifth year of Elizabeth's reign, by which
witchcraft was again made a felony, as it had been in the reign of Henry
VIII.[23] Whatever weight we may attach to Strype's suggestion, we have
every right to believe that Jewel introduced foreign opinion on
witchcraft. Very probably there were many returned exiles as well as
others who brought back word of the crusade on the Continent; but
Jewel's words put the matter formally before the queen and her
government.[24]
We can trace the effect of the ecclesiastic's appeal still further. The
impression produced by it was responsible probably not only for the
passage of the law but also for the issue of commissions to the justices
of the peace to apprehend all the witches they were able to find in
their jurisdictions.[25]
It can hardly be doubted that the impression produced by the bishop's
sermon serves in part to explain the beginning of the state's attack
upon witches. Yet one naturally inquires after some other factor in the
problem. Is it not likely that there were in England itself certain
peculiar conditions, certain special circumstances, that served to
forward the attack? To answer that query, we must recall the situation
in England when Elizabeth took the throne. Elizabeth was a Protestant,
and her accession meant the relinquishment of the Catholic hold upon
England. But it was not long before the claims of Mary, Queen of Scots,
began to give the English ministers bad dreams. Catholic and Spanish
plots against the life of Elizabeth kept the government detectives on
the lookout. Perhaps because it was deemed the hardest to circumvent,
the use of conjuration against the life of the queen was most feared.
It was a method too that appealed to conspirators, who never questioned
its efficacy, and who anticipated little risk of discovery.
To understand why the English government should have been so alarmed at
the efforts of the conjurers, we shall have to go back to the
half-century that preceded the reign of the great queen and review
briefly the rise of those curious traders in mystery. The earlier half
of the fifteenth century, when the witch fires were already lighted in
South Germany, saw the coming of conjurers in England. Their numbers
soon evidenced a growing interest in the supernatural upon the part of
the English and foreshadowed the growing faith in witchcraft. From the
scattered local records the facts have been pieced together to show that
here and there professors of magic powers were beginning to get a
hearing. As they first appear upon the scene, the conjurers may be
grouped in two classes, the position seekers and the treasure seekers.
To the first belong those who used incantations and charms to win the
favor of the powerful, and so to gain advancement for themselves or for
their clients.[26] It was a time when there was every encouragement to
try these means. Men like Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell had risen from
humble rank to the highest places in the state. Their careers seemed
inexplicable, if not uncanny. It was easy to believe that unfair and
unlawful practices had been used. What had been done before could be
done again. So the dealers in magic may have reasoned. At all events,
whatever their mental operations, they experimented with charms which
were to gain the favor of the great, and some of their operations came
to the ears of the court.
The treasure seekers[27] were more numerous. Every now and then in the
course of English history treasures have been unearthed, many of them
buried in Roman times. Stories of lucky finds had of course gained wide
circulation. Here was the opportunity of the bankrupt adventurer and the
stranded promoter. The treasures could be found by the science of magic.
The notion was closely akin to the still current idea that wells can be
located by the use of hazel wands. But none of the conjurers--and this
seems a curious fact to one familiar with the English stories of the
supernatural--ever lit upon the desired treasure. Their efforts hardly
aroused public interest, least of all alarm. Experimenters, who fifty
years later would have been hurried before the privy council, were
allowed to conjure and dig as they pleased. Henry VIII even sold the
right in one locality, and sold it at a price which showed how lightly
he regarded it.[28]
Other forms of magic were of course practiced. By the time that
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, it is safe to say that the practice
of forbidden arts had become wide-spread in England. Reginald Scot a
little later declared that every parish was full of men and women who
claimed to work miracles.[29] Most of them were women, and their
performances read like those of the gipsy fortune-tellers today.
"Cunning women" they called themselves. They were many of them
semi-medical or pseudo-medical practitioners[30] who used herbs and
extracts, and, when those failed, charms and enchantments, to heal the
sick. If they were fairly fortunate, they became known as "good
witches." Particularly in connection with midwifery were their
incantations deemed effective.[31] From such functions it was no far
call to forecast the outcome of love affairs, or to prepare potions
which would ensure love.[32] They became general helpers to the
distressed. They could tell where lost property was to be found, an
undertaking closely related to that of the treasure seekers.[33]
It was usually in the less serious diseases[34] that these cunning folk
were consulted. They were called upon often indeed--if one fragmentary
evidence may be trusted--to diagnose the diseases and to account for the
deaths of domestic animals.[35] It may very easily be that it was from
the necessity of explaining the deaths of animals that the practitioners
of magic began to talk about witchcraft and to throw out a hint that
some witch was at the back of the matter. It would be in line with
their own pretensions. Were they not good witches? Was it not their
province to overcome the machinations of the black witches, that is,
witches who wrought evil rather than good? The disease of an animal was
hard to prescribe for. A sick horse would hardly respond to the waving
of hands and a jumble of strange words. The animal was, in all
probability, bewitched.
At any rate, whether in this particular manner or not, it became shortly
the duty of the cunning women to recognize the signs of witchcraft, to
prescribe for it, and if possible to detect the witch. In many cases the
practitioner wisely enough refused to name any one, but described the
appearance of the guilty party and set forth a series of operations by
which to expose her machinations. If certain herbs were plucked and
treated in certain ways, if such and such words were said, the guilty
party would appear at the door. At other times the wise woman gave a
perfectly recognizable description of the guilty one and offered
remedies that would nullify her maleficent influences. No doubt the
party indicated as the witch was very often another of the "good
witches," perhaps a rival. Throughout the records of the superstition
are scattered examples of wise women upon whom suspicion suddenly
lighted, and who were arraigned and sent to the gallows. Beyond question
the suspicion began often with the ill words of a neighbor,[36] perhaps
of a competitor, words that started an attack upon the woman's
reputation that she was unable to repel.
It is not to be supposed that the art of cunning was confined to the
female sex. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, the realm was alive with
men who were pretenders to knowledge of mysteries. So closely was the
occupation allied to that of the physician that no such strict line as
now exists between reputable physicians and quack doctors separated the
"good witches" from the regular practicers of medicine. It was so
customary in Elizabethan times for thoroughly reputable and even eminent
medical men to explain baffling cases as the results of witchcraft[37]
that to draw the line of demarcation between them and the pretenders who
suggested by means of a charm or a glass a maleficent agent would be
impossible. Granted the phenomena of conjuration and witchcraft as
facts--and no one had yet disputed them--it was altogether easy to
believe that good witches who antagonized the works of black witches
were more dependable than the family physician, who could but suggest
the cause of sickness. The regular practitioner must often have created
business for his brother of the cunning arts.
One would like to know what these practicers thought of their own arts.
Certainly some of them accomplished cures. Mental troubles that baffled
the ordinary physician would offer the "good witch" a rare field for
successful endeavor. Such would be able not only to persuade a community
of their good offices, but to deceive themselves. Not all of them,
however, by any means, were self-deceived. Conscious fraud played a part
in a large percentage of cases. One witch was very naive in her
confession of fraud. When suspected of sorcery and cited to court, she
was said to have frankly recited her charm:
"My lofe in my lappe,
My penny in my purse,
You are never the better,
I am never the worse."
She was acquitted and doubtless continued to add penny to penny.[38]
We need not, indeed, be surprised that the state should have been remiss
in punishing a crime so vague in character and so closely related to an
honorable profession. Except where conjuration had affected high
interests of state, it had been practically overlooked by the
government. Now and then throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries there had been isolated plots against the sovereign, in which
conjury had played a conspicuous part. With these few exceptions the
crime had been one left to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But now the
state was ready to reclaim its jurisdiction over these crimes and to
assume a very positive attitude of hostility towards them. This came
about in a way that has already been briefly indicated. The government
of the queen found itself threatened constantly by plots for making away
with the queen, plots which their instigators hoped would overturn the
Protestant regime and bring England back into the fold. Elizabeth had
hardly mounted her throne when her councillors began to suspect the use
of sorcery and conjuration against her life. As a result they
instituted the most painstaking inquiries into all reported cases of the
sort, especially in and about London and the neighboring counties. Every
Catholic was suspected. Two cases that were taken up within the first
year came to nothing, but a third trial proved more serious. In November
of 1558 Sir Anthony Fortescue,[39] member of a well known Catholic
family, was arrested, together with several accomplices, upon the charge
of casting the horoscope of the queen's life. Fortescue was soon
released, but in 1561 he was again put in custody, this time with two
brothers-in-law, Edmund and Arthur Pole, nephews of the famous cardinal
of that name. The plot that came to light had many ramifications. It was
proposed to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, to Edmund Pole, and from
Flanders to proclaim her Queen of England. In the meantime Elizabeth was
to die a natural death--at least so the conspirators claimed--prophesied
for her by two conjurers, John Prestall and Edmund Cosyn, with the
assistance of a "wicked spryte." It was discovered that the plot
involved the French and Spanish ambassadors. Relations between Paris and
London became strained. The conspirators were tried and sentenced to
death. Fortescue himself, perhaps because he was a second cousin of the
queen and brother of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seems to have
escaped the gallows.[40]
The Fortescue affair was, however, but one of many conspiracies on foot
during the time. Throughout the sixties and the seventies the queen's
councillors were on the lookout. Justices of the peace and other
prominent men in the counties were kept informed by the privy council of
reported conjurers, and they were instructed to send in what evidence
they could gather against them. It is remarkable that three-fourths of
the cases that came under investigation were from a territory within
thirty miles of London. Two-thirds of them were from Essex. Not all the
conjurers were charged with plotting against the queen, but that charge
was most common. It is safe to suppose that, in the cases where that
accusation was not preferred, it was nevertheless the alarm of the privy
council for the life of the queen that had prompted the investigation
and arrest.
Between 1578 and 1582, critical years in the affairs of the Scottish
queen, the anxiety of the London authorities was intense[41]--their
precautions were redoubled. Representatives of the government were sent
out to search for conjurers and were paid well for their services.[42]
The Earl of Shrewsbury, a member of the council who had charge of the
now captive Queen Mary, kept in his employ special detectors of
conjuring.[43] Nothing about Elizabeth's government was better
organized than Cecil's detective service, and the state papers show that
the ferreting out of the conjurers was by no means the least of its
work. It was a service carried on, of course, as quietly as could be,
and yet the cases now and again came to light and made clear to the
public that the government was very fearful of conjurers' attacks upon
the queen. No doubt the activity of the council put all conjurers under
public suspicion and in some degree roused public resentment against
them.
This brings us back to the point: What had the conjurers to do with
witchcraft? By this time the answer is fairly obvious. The practisers of
the magic arts, the charmers and enchanters, were responsible for
developing the notions of witchcraft. The good witch brought in her
company the black witch. This in itself might never have meant more than
an increased activity in the church courts. But when Protestant England
grew suddenly nervous for the life of the queen, when the conjurers
became a source of danger to the sovereign, and the council commenced
its campaign against them, the conditions had been created in which
witchcraft became at once the most dangerous and detested of crimes.
While the government was busy putting down the conjurers, the aroused
popular sentiment was compelling the justices of the peace and then the
assize judges to hang the witches.
This cannot be better illustrated than by the Abingdon affair of
1578-1579. Word had been carried to the privy council that Sir Henry
Newell, justice of the peace, had committed some women near Abingdon on
the charge of making waxen images.[44] The government was at once
alarmed and sent a message to Sir Henry and to the Dean of Windsor
instructing them to find out the facts and to discover if the plots were
directed against the queen. The precaution was unnecessary. There was no
ground for believing that the designs of the women accused had included
the queen. Indeed the evidence of guilt of any kind was very flimsy. But
the excitement of the public had been stirred to the highest pitch. The
privy council had shown its fear of the women and all four of them went
to the gallows.[45]
The same situation that brought about the attack upon witchcraft and
conjuration was no doubt responsible for the transfer of jurisdiction
over the crime. We have already seen that the practice of conjuration
had probably been left largely to the episcopal hierarchy for
punishment.[46] The archdeacons were expected in their visitations to
inquire into the practice of enchantment and magic within the parishes
and to make report.[47] In the reign of Elizabeth it became no light
duty. The church set itself to suppress both the consulter and the
consulted.[48] By the largest number of recorded cases deal of course
with the first class. It was very easy when sick or in trouble to go to
a professed conjurer for help.[49] It was like seeking a physician's
service, as we have seen. The church frowned upon it, but the danger
involved in disobeying the church was not deemed great. The cunning man
or woman was of course the one who ran the great risk. When worst came
to worst and the ecclesiastical power took cognizance of his profession,
the best he could do was to plead that he was a "good witch" and
rendered valuable services to the community.[50] But a good end was in
the eyes of the church no excuse for an evil means. The good witches
were dealers with evil spirits and hence to be repressed.
Yet the church was very light in its punishments. In the matter of
penalties, indeed, consulter and consulted fared nearly alike, and both
got off easily. Public confession and penance in one or more
specifically designated churches, usually in the nearest parish church,
constituted the customary penalty.[51] In a few instances it was
coupled with the requirement that the criminal should stand in the
pillory, taper in hand, at several places at stated times.[52] The
ecclesiastical records are so full of church penances that a student is
led to wonder how effectual they were in shaming the penitent into
better conduct. It may well be guessed that most of the criminals were
not sensitive souls that would suffer profoundly from the disgrace
incurred.
The control of matters of this kind was in the hands of the church by
sufferance only. So long as the state was not greatly interested, the
church was permitted to retain its jurisdiction.[53] Doubtless the kings
of England would have claimed the state's right of jurisdiction if it
had become a matter of dispute. The church itself recognized the secular
power in more important cases.[54] In such cases the archdeacon usually
acted with the justice of peace in conducting the examination,[55] as in
rendering sentence. Even then, however, the penalty was as a rule
ecclesiastical. But, with the second half of the sixteenth century,
there arose new conditions which resulted in the transfer of this
control to the state. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established a
Church of England around the king as a centre. The power of the church
belonged to the king, and, if to the king, to his ministers and his
judges. Hence certain crimes that had been under the control of the
church fell under the jurisdiction of the king's courts.[56] In a more
special way the same change came about through the attack of the privy
council upon the conjurers. What had hitherto been a comparatively
insignificant offence now became a crime against the state and was so
dealt with.
The change, of course, was not sudden. It was not accomplished in a
year, nor in a decade. It was going on throughout the first half of
Elizabeth's reign. By the beginning of the eighties the church control
was disappearing. After 1585 the state had practically exclusive
jurisdiction.[57]
We have now finished the attempt to trace the beginning of the definite
movement against witchcraft in England. What witchcraft was, what it
became, how it was to be distinguished from sorcery--these are questions
that we have tried to answer very briefly. We have dealt in a cursory
way with a series of cases extending from Anglo-Saxon days down to the
fifteenth century in order to show how unfixed was the matter of
jurisdiction. We have sought also to explain how Continental opinion was
introduced into England through Jewel and other Marian exiles, to show
what independent forces were operating in England, and to exhibit the
growing influence of the charmers and their relation to the development
of witchcraft; and lastly we have aimed to prove that the special danger
to the queen had no little part in creating the crusade against witches.
These are conclusions of some moment and a caution must be inserted. We
have been treating of a period where facts are few and information
fragmentary. Under such circumstances conclusions can only be tentative.
Perhaps the most that can be said of them is that they are suggestions.
[1] Benjamin Thorpe, _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_ (London,
1840), I, 41; Liebermann, _Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen_ (Halle, 1906),
and passages cited in his _Woerterbuch_ under _wiccan_, _wiccacraeft_;
Thomas Wright, ed., _A Contemporary Narrative of the Proceedings against
Dame Alice Kyteler_ (Camden Soc., London, 1843), introd., i-iii.
[2] George L. Burr, "The Literature of Witchcraft," printed in _Papers
of the Am. Hist. Assoc._, IV (New York, 1890), 244.
[3] Henry C. Lea, _History of the Inquisition in Spain_ (New York,
1906-1907), IV, 207; _cf._ his _History of the Inquisition of the Middle
Ages_ (New York, 1888), III, chs. VI, VII. The most elaborate study of
the rise of the delusion is that by J. Hansen, _Zauberwahn, Inquisition
und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter_ (Cologne, 1900).
[4] Lea, _Inquisition in Spain_, IV, 206.
[5] Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_ (2d ed., Cambridge,
1898), II, 554.
[6] _Ibid._ See also Wright, ed., _Proceedings against Dame Alice
Kyteler_, introd., ix.
[7] _Ibid._, x. Lincoln, not Norwich, as Wright's text (followed by
Pollock and Maitland) has it. See the royal letter itself printed in his
footnote, and _cf._ Rymer's _Foedera_ (under date of 2 Jan. 1406) and
the _Calendar of the Patent Rolls_ (Henry IV, vol. III, p. 112). The
bishop was Philip Repington, late the King's chaplain and confessor.
[8] L. O. Pike, _History of Crime in England_ (London, 1873), I,
355-356.
[9] _Ibid._ Sir Harris Nicolas, _Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy
Council_ (London, 1834-1837). IV, 114.
[10] _English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II_, etc., edited by J.
S. Davies (Camden Soc., London, 1856), 57-60.
[11] _Ramsay, Lancaster and York_ (Oxford, 1892), II, 31-35; Wright,
ed., _Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler_, introd., xv-xvi, quoting
the Chronicle of London; K. H. Vickers, _Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester_
(London, 1907), 269-279.
[12] Wright, ed., _op. cit._, introd., xvi-xvii.
[13] James Gairdner, _Life and Reign of Richard III_ (2d ed., London,
1879), 81-89. Jane Shore was finally tried before the court of the
Bishop of London.
[14] Sir J. F. Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_
(London, 1883), II, 410, gives five instances from Archdeacon Hale's
_Ecclesiastical Precedents_; see extracts from Lincoln Episcopal
Visitations in _Archaeologia_ (Soc. of Antiquaries, London), XLVIII,
254-255, 262; see also articles of visitation, etc., for 1547 and 1559
in David Wilkins, _Concilia Magnae Britanniae_ (London, 1737), IV, 25,
186, 190.
[15] An earlier statute had mentioned sorcery and witchcraft in
connection with medical practitioners. The "Act concerning Phesicions
and Surgeons" of 3 Henry VIII, ch. XI, was aimed against quacks.
"Forasmoche as the science and connyng of Physyke and Surgerie to the
perfecte knowlege wherof bee requisite bothe grete lernyng and ripe
experience ys daily ... exercised by a grete multitude of ignoraunt
persones ... soofarfurth that common Artificers as Smythes Wevers and
Women boldely and custumably take upon theim grete curis and thyngys of
great difficultie In the which they partely use socery and which crafte
[_sic_] partely applie such medicyne unto the disease as be verey
noyous," it was required that every candidate to practice medicine
should be examined by the bishop of the diocese (in London by either the
bishop or the Dean of St. Paul's).
[16] Stephen, _History of Criminal Law_, II, 431, says of this act:
"Hutchinson suggests that this act, which was passed two years after the
act of the Six Articles, was intended as a 'hank upon the reformers,'
that the part of it to which importance was attached was the pulling
down of crosses, which, it seems, was supposed to be practised in
connection with magic. Hutchinson adds that the act was never put into
execution either against witches or reformers. The act was certainly
passed during that period of Henry's reign when he was inclining in the
Roman Catholic direction." The part of the act to which Hutchinson
refers reads as follows: "And for execucion of their saide falce devyses
and practises have made or caused to be made dyvers Images and pictures
of men, women, childrene, Angelles or develles, beastes or fowles, ...
and gyving faithe and credit to suche fantasticall practises have dygged
up and pulled downe an infinite nombre of Crosses within this Realme."
[17] _Parliamentary History_ (London, 1751-1762), III, 229.
[18] _Ibid._
[19] _Autobiography of Edward Underhill_ (in _Narratives of the Days of
the Reformation_, Camden Soc., London, 1859), 172-175.
[20] The measure in fact reached the engrossing stage in the Commons.
Both houses, however, adjourned early in April and left it unpassed.
[21] Several of the bishops who were appointed on Elizabeth's accession
had travelled in South Germany and Switzerland during the Marian period
and had the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the propaganda
in these parts against witches. Thomas Bentham, who was to be bishop of
Coventry and Lichfield, had retired from England to Zurich and had
afterwards been preacher to the exiles at Basel. John Parkhurst,
appointed bishop of Norwich, had settled in Zurich on Mary's accession.
John Scory, appointed bishop of Hereford, had served as chaplain to the
exiles in Geneva. Richard Cox, appointed bishop of Ely, had visited
Frankfort and Strassburg. Edmund Grindall, who was to be the new bishop
of London, had, during his exile, visited Strassburg, Speier, and
Frankfort. Miles Coverdale, who had been bishop of Exeter but who was
not reappointed, had been in Geneva in the course of his exile. There
were many other churchmen of less importance who at one time or another
during the Marian period visited Zurich. See Bullinger's _Diarium_
(Basel, 1904) and Pellican's _Chronikon_ (Basel, 1877), _passim_, as
also Theodor Vetter, _Relations between England and Zurich during the
Reformation_ (London, 1904). At Strassburg the persecution raged
somewhat later; but how thoroughly Bucer and his colleagues approved and
urged it is clear from a letter of advice addressed by them in 1538 to
their fellow pastor Schwebel, of Zweibruecken (printed as No. 88 in the
_Centuria Epistolarum_ appended to Schwebel's _Scripta Theologica_,
Zweibruecken, 1605). That Bucer while in England (1549-1551) found also
occasion to utter these views can hardly be doubted. These details I owe
to Professor Burr.
[22] Various dates have been assigned for Jewel's sermon, but it can be
determined approximately from a passage in the discourse. In the course
of the sermon he remarked: "I would wish that once again, as time should
serve, there might be had a quiet and sober disputation, that each part
might be required to shew their grounds without self will and without
affection, not to maintain or breed contention, ... but only that the
truth may be known.... For, at the last disputation that should have
been, you know which party gave over and would not meddle." This is
clearly an allusion to the Westminster disputation of the last of March,
1559; see John Strype, _Annals of the Reformation_ (London, 1709-1731;
Oxford, 1824), ed. of 1824, I, pt. i, 128. The sermon therefore was
preached after that disputation. It may be further inferred that it was
preached before Jewel's controversy with Cole in March, 1560. The words,
"For at the last disputation ... you know which party gave over and
would not meddle," were hardly written after Cole accepted Jewel's
challenge. It was on the second Sunday before Easter (March 17), 1560,
that Jewel delivered at court the discourse in which he challenged
dispute on four points of church doctrine. On the next day Henry Cole
addressed him a letter in which he asked him why he "yesterday in the
Court and at all other times at Paul's Cross" offered rather to "dispute
in these four points than in the chief matters that lie in question
betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants." In replying to Cole on
the 20th of March Jewel wrote that he stood only upon the negative and
again mentioned his offer. On the 31st of March he repeated his
challenge upon the four points, and upon this occasion went very much
into detail in supporting them. Now, in the sermon which we are trying
to date, the sermon in which allusion is made to the prevalence of
witches, the four points are briefly named. It may be reasonably
conjectured that this sermon anticipated the elaboration of the four
points as well as the challenging sermon of March 17. It is as certain
that it was delivered after Jewel's return to London from his visitation
in the west country. On November 2, 1559, he wrote to Peter Martyr: "I
have at last returned to London, with a body worn out by a most
fatiguing journey." See _Zurich Letters_, I (Parker Soc., Cambridge,
1842), 44. It is interesting and significant that he adds: "We found in
all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated
people dreamed that Christ had been pierced, and I know not what small
fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses had
everywhere become enormous." Jewel was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury
in the following January, having been nominated in the summer of 1559
just before his western visitation. The sermon in which he alluded to
witches may have been preached at any time after he returned from the
west, November 2, and before March 17. It would be entirely natural that
in a court sermon delivered by the newly appointed bishop of Salisbury
the prevalence of witchcraft should be mentioned. It does not seem a
rash guess that the sermon was preached soon after his return, perhaps
in December, when the impression of what he had seen in the west was
still fresh in his memory. But it is not necessary to make this
supposition. Though the discourse was delivered some time after March
15, 1559, when the first bill "against Conjurations, Prophecies, etc.,"
was brought before the Commons (see _Journal of the House of Commons_,
I, 57), it is not unreasonable to believe that there was some connection
between the discourse and the fortunes of this bill. That connection
seems the more probable on a careful reading of the Commons Journals for
the first sessions of Elizabeth's Parliament. It is evident that the
Elizabethan legislators were working in close cooperation with the
ecclesiastical authorities. Jewel's sermon may be found in his _Works_
(ed. for the Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1845-1850), II, 1025-1034. (For the
correspondence with Cole see I, 26 ff.)
For assistance in dating this sermon the writer wishes to express his
special obligation to Professor Burr.
[23] Strype, _Annals of the Reformation_, I, pt. i, 11. He may, indeed,
mean to ascribe it, not to the sermon, but to the evils alleged by the
sermon.
[24] In the contemporary account entitled _A True and just Recorde of
the Information, Examination, and Confession of all the Witches taken at
St. Oses.... Written ... by W. W._ (1582), next leaf after B 5, we read:
"there is a man of great cunning and knowledge come over lately unto our
Queenes Maiestie, which hath advertised her what a companie and number
of witches be within Englande." This probably refers to Jewel.
[25] See _ibid._, B 5 verso: "I and other of her Justices have received
commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites."
This was written later, but the event is referred to as following what
must have been Bishop Jewel's sermon.
[26] Thomas Wright, _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic_ (ed. of N. Y.,
1852), 126 ff.; see also his _Elizabeth and her Times_ (London, 1838),
I, 457, letter of Shrewsbury to Burghley.
[27] Wright, _Narratives_, 130 ff.
[28] _Ibid._, 134.
[29] See Reginald Scot, _The Discoverie of Witchcraft_ (London, 1584;
reprinted, Brinsley Nicholson, ed., London, 1886), 4.
[30] A very typical instance was that in Kent in 1597, see _Archaeologia
Cantiana_ (Kent Archaeological Soc., London), XXVI, 21. Several good
instances are given in the _Hertfordshire County Session Rolls_
(compiled by W. J. Hardy, London, 1905), I; see also J. Raine, ed.,
_Depositions respecting the Rebellion of 1569, Witchcraft, and other
Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Court of Durham_ (Surtees Soc.,
London, 1845), 99, 100.
[31] J. Raine, ed., _Injunctions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings of
Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham_ (Surtees Soc., London, 1850), 18; H.
Owen and J. B. Blakeway, _History of Shrewsbury_ (London, 1825), II,
364, art. 43.
[32] _Arch. Cant._, XXVI, 19.
[33] _Hertfordshire Co. Sess. Rolls_, I, 3.
[34] See _Depositions ... from the Court of Durham_, 99; _Arch. Cant._,
XXVI, 21; W. H. Hale, _Precedents_, etc. (London, 1847), 148, 185.
[35] Hale, _op. cit._, 163; _Middlesex County Records_, ed. by J. C.
Jeaffreson (London, 1892), I, 84, 94.
[36] For an instance of how a "wise woman" feared this very thing, see
Hale, _op. cit._, 147.
[37] See _Witches taken at St. Oses_, E; also Dr. Barrow's opinion in
the pamphlet entitled _The most strange and admirable discoverie of the
three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed at the last
assizes at Huntingdon...._ (London, 1593).
[38] _Folk Lore Soc. Journal_, II, 157-158, where this story is quoted
from a work by "Wm. Clouues, Mayster in Chirurgery," published in 1588.
He only professed to have "reade" of it, so that it is perhaps just a
pleasant tradition. If it is nothing more than that, it is at least an
interesting evidence of opinion.
[39] Strype, _Annals of the Reformation_, I, pt. i, 9-10; _Dictionary of
National Biography_, article on Anthony Fortescue, by G. K. Fortescue.
[40] Strype, _op. cit._, I, pt. i, 546, 555-558; also Wright, _Elizabeth
and her Times_, I, 121, where a letter from Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith is
printed.
[41] The interest which the privy council showed in sorcery and
witchcraft during the earlier part of the reign is indicated in the
following references: _Acts of the Privy Council_, new series, VII, 6,
22, 200-201; X, 220, 382; XI, 22, 36, 292, 370-371, 427; XII, 21-22, 23,
26, 29, 34, 102, 251; _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-1580_,
137, 142; _id._, _1581-1590_, 29, 220, 246-247; _id._, _Add. 1580-1625_,
120-121; see also John Strype, _Life of Sir Thomas Smith_ (London, 1698;
Oxford, 1820), ed. of 1820, 127-129. The case mentioned in _Cal. St. P.,
Dom., 1581-1590_, 29, was probably a result of the activity of the privy
council. The case in _id._, _Add., 1580-1625_, 120-121, is an instance
of where the accused was suspected of both witchcraft and "high treason
touching the supremacy." Nearly all of the above mentioned references to
the activity of the privy council refer to the first half of the reign
and a goodly proportion to the years 1578-1582.
[42] _Acts P. C._, n. s., XI, 292.
[43] Strype, _Sir Thomas Smith_, 127-129.
[44] _A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible acts
committed by Elizabeth Stile_, etc. (for full title see appendix). This
pamphlet is in black letter. Its account is confirmed by the reference
in _Acts P. C._, n. s., XI, 22. See also Scot, _Discoverie_, 51, 543.
[45] An aged widow had been committed to gaol on the testimony of her
neighbors that she was "lewde, malitious, and hurtful to the people." An
ostler, after he had refused to give her relief, had suffered a pain. So
far as the account goes, this was the sum of the evidence against the
woman. Unhappily she waited not on the order of her trial but made
voluble confession and implicated five others, three of whom were
without doubt professional enchanters. She had met, she said, with
Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, and Mother Margaret, and "concluded
several hainous and vilanous practices." The deaths of five persons whom
she named were the outcome of their concerted plans. For the death of a
sixth she avowed entire responsibility. This amazing confession may have
been suggested to her piece by piece, but it was received at full value.
That she included others in her guilt was perhaps because she responded
to the evident interest aroused by such additions, or more likely
because she had grudges unsatisfied. The women were friendless, three of
the four were partially dependent upon alms, there was no one to come to
their help, and they were convicted. The man that had been arraigned, a
"charmer," seems to have gone free.
[46] _Injunctions ... of ... Bishop of Durham_, 18, 84, 99; Visitations
of Canterbury, in _Arch. Cant._, XXVI; Hale, _Precedents, 1475-1640_,
147, etc.
[47] Arch. Cant., XXVI, _passim_; Hale, _op. cit._, 147, 148, 163, 185;
Mrs. Lynn Linton, _Witch Stories_ (London, 1861; new ed., 1883), 144.
[48] See Hale, _op. cit._, 148, 157.
[49] Hale, _op. cit._, 148; _Depositions ... from the Court of Durham_,
99; _Arch. Cant._, XXVI, 21.
[50] Hale, _op. cit._, 148, 185.
[51] _Ibid._, 157.
[52] _Denham Tracts_ (Folk Lore Soc., London), II, 332; John Sykes,
_Local Record ... of Remarkable Events ... in Northumberland, Durham, ..._
etc. (2d ed., Newcastle, 1833-1852), I, 79.
[53] See, for example, _Acts P. C._, n. s., VII, 32 (1558).
[54] _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1547-1580_, 173. Instance where the Bishop of
London seems to have examined a case and turned it over to the privy
council.
[55] Rachel Pinder and Agnes Bridges, who pretended to be possessed by
the Devil, were examined before the "person of St. Margarets in
Lothberry," and the Mayor of London, as well as some justices of the
peace. They later made confession before the Archbishop of Canterbury
and some justices of the peace. See the black letter pamphlet, _The
discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two
maydens within the Citie of London_ [1574].
[56] Francis Coxe came before the queen rather than the church. He
narrates his experiences in _A short treatise declaringe the detestable
wickednesse of magicall sciences, ..._ (1561). Yet John Walsh, a man
with a similar record, came before the commissary of the Bishop of
Exeter. See _The Examination of John Walsh before Master Thomas
Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop of
Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and
Sorcerye, in the presence of divers gentlemen and others, the XX of
August, 1566_.
[57] We say "practically," because instances of church jurisdiction come
to light now and again throughout the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER II.
WITCHCRAFT UNDER ELIZABETH.
The year 1566 is hardly less interesting in the history of English
witchcraft than 1563. It has been seen that the new statute passed in
1563 was the beginning of a vigorous prosecution by the state of the
detested agents of the evil one. In 1566 occurred the first important
trial known to us in the new period. That trial deserves note not only
on its own account, but because it was recorded in the first of the long
series of witch chap-books--if we may so call them. A very large
proportion of our information about the execution of the witches is
derived from these crude pamphlets, briefly recounting the trials. The
witch chap-book was a distinct species. In the days when the chronicles
were the only newspapers it was what is now the "extra," brought out to
catch the public before the sensation had lost its flavor. It was of
course a partisan document, usually a vindication of the worthy judge
who had condemned the guilty, with some moral and religious
considerations by the respectable and righteous author. A terribly
serious bit of history it was that he had to tell and he told it grimly
and without pity. Such comedy as lights up the gloomy black-letter pages
was quite unintentional. He told a story too that was full of details
trivial enough in themselves, but details that give many glimpses into
the every-day life of the lower classes in town and country.
The pamphlet of 1566 was brief and compact of information. It was
entitled _The examination and confession of certaine Wytches at
Chensforde in the Countie of Essex before the Quenes Maiesties Judges
the XXVI daye of July anno 1566_. The trial there recorded is one that
presents some of the most curious and inexplicable features in the
annals of English witchcraft. The personnel of the "size" court is
mysterious. At the first examination "Doctor Cole" and "Master Foscue"
were present. Both men are easily identified. Doctor Cole was the
Reverend Thomas Cole, who had held several places in Essex and had in
1564 been presented to the rectory of Stanford Rivers, about ten miles
from Chelmsford. Master Foscue was unquestionably Sir John Fortescue,
later Chancellor of the Exchequer, and at this time keeper of the great
wardrobe. On the second examination Sir Gilbert Gerard, the queen's
attorney, and John Southcote, justice of the queen's bench, were
present. Why Southcote should be present is perfectly clear. It is not
so easy to understand about the others. Was the attorney-general acting
as presiding officer, or was he conducting the prosecution? The latter
hypothesis is of course more consistent with his position. But what were
the rector of Stanford Rivers and the keeper of the great wardrobe doing
there? Had Doctor Cole been appointed in recognition of the claims of
the church? And the keeper of the wardrobe, what was the part that he
played? One cannot easily escape the conclusion that the case was deemed
one of unusual significance. Perhaps the privy council had heard of
something that alarmed it and had delegated these four men, all known
at Elizabeth's court, to examine into the matter in connection with the
assizes.
The examinations themselves present features of more interest to the
psychologist than to the historical student. Yet they have some
importance in the understanding of witchcraft as a social phenomenon.
Elizabeth Francis, when examined, confessed with readiness to various
"vilanies." From her grandmother she said she had as a child received a
white spotted cat, named Sathan, whom she had fed, and who gave her what
she asked for. "She desired to have one Andrew Byles to her husband,
which was a man of some welth, and the cat dyd promyse she shold." But
the promise proved illusory. The man left her without marriage and then
she "willed Sathan ... to touch his body, whych he forthewith dyd,
whereof he died." Once again she importuned Satan for a husband. This
time she gained one "not so rich as the other." She bore a daughter to
him, but the marriage was an unhappy one. "They lived not so quietly as
she desyred, beinge stirred to much unquietnes and moved to swearing and
cursinge." Thereupon she employed the spirit to kill her child and to
lame her husband. After keeping the cat fifteen years she turned it over
to Mother Waterhouse, "a pore woman."[1]
Mother Waterhouse was now examined. She had received the cat and kept it
"a great while in woll in a pot." She had then turned it into a toad.
She had used it to kill geese, hogs, and cattle of her neighbors. At
length she had employed it to kill a neighbor whom she disliked, and
finally her own husband. The woman's eighteen-year-old daughter, Joan,
was now called to the stand and confirmed the fact that her mother kept
a toad. She herself had one day been refused a piece of bread and cheese
by a neighbor's child and had invoked the toad's help. The toad promised
to assist her if she would surrender her soul. She did so. Then the toad
haunted the neighbor's girl in the form of a dog with horns. The mother
was again called to the stand and repeated the curious story told by her
daughter.
Now the neighbor's child, Agnes Brown, was brought in to testify. Her
story tallied in some of its details with that of the two Waterhouse
women; she had been haunted by the horned dog, and she added certain
descriptions of its conduct that revealed good play of childish
imagination.[2]
The attorney put some questions, but rather to lead on the witnesses
than to entangle them. He succeeded, however, in creating a violent
altercation between the Waterhouses on the one hand, and Agnes Brown on
the other, over trifling matters of detail.[3] At length he offered to
release Mother Waterhouse if she would make the spirit appear in the
court.[4] The offer was waived. The attorney then asked, "When dyd thye
Cat suck of thy bloud?" "Never," said she. He commanded the jailer to
lift up the "kercher" on the woman's head. He did so and the spots on
her face and nose where she had pricked herself for the evil spirit were
exposed.
The jury retired. Two days later Agnes Waterhouse suffered the penalty
of the law, not however until she had added to her confessions.[5]
The case is a baffling one. We can be quite sure that the pamphlet
account is incomplete. One would like to know more about the substance
of fact behind this evidence. Did the parties that were said to have
been killed by witchcraft really die at the times specified? Either the
facts of their deaths were well known in the community and were fitted
with great cleverness into the story Mother Waterhouse told, or the
jurors and the judges neglected the first principles of common sense and
failed to inquire about the facts.[6] The questions asked by the queen's
attorney reveal hardly more than an unintelligent curiosity to know the
rest of the story. He shows just one saving glint of skepticism. He
offered to release Mother Waterhouse if she would materialize her
spirit.
Mother Waterhouse was her own worst enemy. Her own testimony was the
principal evidence presented against her, and yet she denied guilt on
one particular upon which the attorney-general had interrogated her.
This might lead one to suppose that her answers were the haphazard
replies of a half-witted woman. But the supposition is by no means
consistent with the very definite and clear-cut nature of her testimony.
It is useless to try to unravel the tangles of the case. It is possible
that under some sort of duress--although there is no evidence of
this--she had deliberately concocted a story to fit those of Elizabeth
Francis and Agnes Brown, and that her daughter, hearing her mother's
narrative in court--a very possible thing in that day--had fitted hers
into it. It is conceivable too that Mother Waterhouse had yielded merely
to the wish to amaze her listeners. It is a more probable supposition
that the questions asked of her by the judge were based upon the
accusations already made by Agnes Brown and that they suggested to her
the main outlines of her narrative.
Elizabeth Francis, who had been the first accused and who had accused
Mother Waterhouse, escaped. Whether it was because she had turned
state's evidence or because she had influential friends in the
community, we do not know. It is possible that the judges recognized
that her confession was unsupported by the testimony of other witnesses.
Such a supposition, however, credits the court with keener
discrimination than seems ever to have been exhibited in such cases in
the sixteenth century.[7]
But, though Elizabeth Francis had escaped, her reputation as a dangerous
woman in the community was fixed. Thirteen years later she was again put
on trial before the itinerant justices. This brings us to the second
trial of witches at Chelmsford in 1579. Mistress Francis's examination
elicited less than in the first trial. She had cursed a woman "and badde
a mischief to light uppon her." The woman, she understood, was
grievously pained. She followed the course that she had taken before
and began to accuse others. We know very little as to the outcome. At
least one of the women accused went free because "manslaughter or murder
was not objected against her."[8] Three women, however, were condemned
and executed. One of them was almost certainly Elleine Smith, daughter
of a woman hanged as a witch,--another illustration of the persistence
of suspicion against the members of a family.
The Chelmsford affair of 1579[9] was not unlike that of 1566. There were
the same tales of spirits that assumed animal forms. The young son of
Elleine Smith declared that his mother kept three spirits, Great Dick in
a wicker bottle, Little Dick in a leathern bottle, and Willet in a
wool-pack. Goodwife Webb saw "a thyng like a black Dogge goe out of her
doore." But the general character of the testimony in the second trial
bore no relation to that in the first. There was no agreement of the
different witnesses. The evidence was haphazard. The witch and another
woman had a falling out--fallings out were very common. Next day the
woman was taken ill. This was the sort of unimpeachable testimony that
was to be accepted for a century yet. In the affair of 1566 the judges
had made some attempt at quizzing the witnesses, but in 1579 all
testimony was seemingly rated at par.[10] In both instances the proof
rested mainly upon confession. Every woman executed had made
confessions of guilt. This of course was deemed sufficient. Nevertheless
the courts were beginning to introduce other methods of proving the
accused guilty. The marks on Agnes Waterhouse had been uncovered at the
request of the attorney-general; and at her execution she had been
questioned about her ability to say the Lord's Prayer and other parts of
the service. Neither of these matters was emphasized, but the mention of
them proves that notions were already current that were later to have
great vogue.
The Chelmsford cases find their greatest significance, however, not as
illustrations of the use and abuse of evidence, but because they
exemplify the continuity of the witch movement. That continuity finds
further illustration in the fact that there was a third alarm at
Chelmsford in 1589, which resulted in three more executions. But in this
case the women involved seem, so far as we know, to have had no
connection with the earlier cases. The fate of Elizabeth Francis and
that of Elleine Smith are more instructive as proof of the long-standing
nature of a community suspicion. Elleine could not escape her mother's
reputation nor Elizabeth her own.
Both these women seem to have been of low character at any rate.
Elizabeth had admitted illicit amours, and Elleine may very well have
been guilty on the same count.[11] All of the women involved in the two
trials were in circumstances of wretched poverty; most, if not all, of
them were dependent upon begging and the poor relief for support.[12]
It is easy to imagine the excitement in Essex that these trials must
have produced. The accused had represented a wide territory in the
county. The women had been fetched to Chelmsford from towns as far apart
as Hatfield-Peverel and Maldon. It is not remarkable that three years
later than the affair of 1579 there should have been another outbreak in
the county, this time in a more aggravated form. St. Oses, or St.
Osyth's, to the northeast of Chelmsford, was to be the scene of the most
remarkable affair of its kind in Elizabethan times. The alarm began with
the formulation of charges against a woman of the community. Ursley Kemp
was a poor woman of doubtful reputation. She rendered miscellaneous
services to her neighbors. She acted as midwife, nursed children, and
added to her income by "unwitching" the diseased. Like other women of
the sort, she was looked upon with suspicion. Hence, when she had been
refused the nursing of the child of Grace Thurlow, a servant of that Mr.
Darcy who was later to try her, and when the child soon afterward fell
out of its cradle and broke its neck, the mother suspected Ursley of
witchcraft. Nevertheless she did not refuse her help when she "began to
have a lameness in her bones." Ursley promised to unwitch her and
seemingly kept her word, for the lameness disappeared. Then it was that
the nurse-woman asked for the twelve-pence she had been promised and was
refused. Grace pleaded that she was a "poore and needie woman." Ursley
became angry and threatened to be even with her. The lameness reappeared
and Grace Thurlow was thoroughly convinced that Ursley was to blame.
When the case was carried before the justices of the peace, the accused
woman denied that she was guilty of anything more than unwitching the
afflicted. That she had learned, she said, ten or more years ago from a
woman now deceased. She was committed to the assizes, and Justice Brian
Darcy, whose servant Grace Thurlow had started the trouble, took the
case in hand. He examined her eight-year-old "base son," who gave
damning evidence against his mother. She fed four imps, Tyffin, Tittey,
Piggen, and Jacket. The boy's testimony and the judge's promise that if
she would confess the truth she "would have favour," seemed to break
down the woman's resolution. "Bursting out with weeping she fell upon
her knees and confessed that she had four spirits." Two of them she had
used for laming, two for killing. Not only the details of her son's
evidence, but all the earlier charges, she confirmed step by step, first
in private confessions to the judge and then publicly at the court
sessions. The woman's stories tallied with those of all her accusers[13]
and displayed no little play of imagination in the orientation of
details.[14] Not content with thus entangling herself in a fearful web
of crime, she went on to point out other women guilty of similar
witchcrafts. Four of those whom she named were haled before the justice.
Elizabeth Bennett, who spun wool for a cloth-maker, was one of those
most vehemently accused, but she denied knowledge of any kind of
witchcraft. It had been charged against her that she kept some wool
hidden in a pot under some stones in her house. She denied at first the
possession of this potent and malignant charm; but, influenced by the
gentle urgings of Justice Darcy,[15] she gave way, as Ursley Kemp had
done, and, breaking all restraint, poured forth wild stories of devilish
crimes committed through the assistance of her imps.
But why should we trace out the confessions, charges, and
counter-charges that followed? The stories that were poured forth
continued to involve a widening group until sixteen persons were under
accusation of the most awful crimes, committed by demoniacal agency. As
at Chelmsford, they were the dregs of the lower classes, women with
illegitimate children, some of them dependent upon public support. It
will be seen that in some respects the panic bore a likeness to those
that had preceded. The spirits, which took extraordinary and bizarre
forms, were the offspring of the same perverted imaginations, but they
had assumed new shapes. Ursley Kemp kept a white lamb, a little gray
cat, a black cat, and a black toad. There were spirits of every sort,
"two little thyngs like horses, one white, the other black'"; six
"spirits like cowes ... as big as rattles"; spirits masquerading as
blackbirds. One spirit strangely enough remained invisible. It will be
observed by the reader that the spirits almost fitted into a color
scheme. Very vivid colors were those preferred in their spirits by these
St. Oses women. The reader can see, too, that the confessions showed the
influence of the great cat tradition.
We have seen the readiness with which the deluded women made confession.
Some of the confessions were poured forth as from souls long surcharged
with guilt. But not all of them came in this way. Margerie Sammon, who
had testified against one of her neighbors, was finally herself caught
in the web of accusation in which a sister had also been involved. She
was accused by her sister. "I defie thee," she answered, "though thou
art my sister." But her sister drew her aside and "whyspered her in the
eare," after which, with "great submission and many teares," she made a
voluble confession. One wonders about that whispered consultation. Had
her sister perhaps suggested that the justice was offering mercy to
those who confessed? For Justice Darcy was very liberal with his
promises of mercy and absolutely unscrupulous about breaking them.[16]
It is gratifying to be able to record that there was yet a remnant left
who confessed nothing at all and stood stubborn to the last. One of them
was Margaret Grevel, who denied the accusations against her. She "saith
that shee herselfe hath lost severall bruings and bakings of bread, and
also swine, but she never did complaine thereof: saying that shee wished
her gere were at a stay and then shee cared not whether shee were hanged
or burnt or what did become of her." Annis Herd was another who stuck to
her innocence. She could recall various incidents mentioned by her
accusers; it was true that she had talked to Andrew West about getting a
pig, it was true that she had seen Mr. Harrison at his parsonage
gathering plums and had asked for some and been refused. But she denied
that she had any imps or that she had killed any one.
The use of evidence in this trial would lead one to suppose that in
England no rules of evidence were yet in existence. The testimony of
children ranging in age from six to nine was eagerly received. No
objection indeed was made to the testimony of a neighbor who professed
to have overheard what he deemed an incriminating statement. As a matter
of fact the remark, if made, was harmless enough.[17] Expert evidence
was introduced in a roundabout way by the statement offered in court
that a physician had suspected that a certain case was witchcraft.
Nothing was excluded. The garrulous women had been give free rein to
pile up their silly accusations against one another. Not until the trial
was nearing its end does it seem to have occurred to Brian Darcy to warn
a woman against making false charges.
It will be recalled that in the Chelmsford trials Mother Waterhouse had
been found to have upon her certain marks, yet little emphasis had been
laid upon them. In the trials of 1582 the proof drawn from these marks
was deemed of the first importance and the judge appointed juries of
women to make examination. No artist has yet dared to paint the picture
of the gloating female inquisitors grouped around their naked and
trembling victim, a scene that was to be enacted in many a witch trial.
And it is well, for the scene would be too repellent and brutal for
reproduction. In the use of these specially instituted juries there was
no care to get unbiassed decisions. One of the inquisitors appointed to
examine Cystley Celles had already served as witness against her.
It is hard to refrain from an indictment of the hopelessly prejudiced
justice who gathered the evidence.[18] To entrap the defendants seems to
have been his end. In the account which he wrote[19] he seems to have
feared lest the public should fail to understand how his cleverness
ministered to the conviction of the women.[20]
"There is a man," he wrote, "of great cunning and knowledge come over
lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, which hath advertised her what a
companie and number of witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other
of her Justices have received commission for the apprehending of as many
as are within these limites." No doubt he hoped to attract royal notice
and win favor by his zeal.
The Chelmsford affairs and that at St. Oses were the three remarkable
trials of their kind in the first part of Elizabeth's reign. They
furnish some evidence of the progress of superstition. The procedure in
1582 reveals considerable advance over that of 1566. The theory of
diabolic agency had been elaborated. The testimony offered was gaining
in complexity and in variety. New proofs of guilt were being introduced
as well as new methods of testing the matter. In the second part of
Elizabeth's reign we have but one trial of unusual interest, that at
Warboys in Huntingdonshire. This, we shall see, continued the
elaboration of the witch procedure. It was a case that attracted
probably more notice at the time than any other in the sixteenth
century. The accidental fancy of a child and the pronouncement of a
baffled physician were in this instance the originating causes of the
trouble. One of the children of Sir Robert Throckmorton, head of a
prominent family in Huntingdonshire, was taken ill. It so happened that
a neighbor, by name Alice Samuel, called at the house and the ailing and
nervous child took the notion that the woman was a witch and cried out
against her. "Did you ever see, sayd the child, one more like a witch
then she is; take off her blacke thrumbd cap, for I cannot abide to
looke on her." Her parents apparently thought nothing of this at the
time. When Dr. Barrow, an eminent physician of Cambridge, having treated
the child for two of the diseases of children, and without success,
asked the mother and father if any witchcraft were suspected, he was
answered in the negative. The Throckmortons were by no means quick to
harbor a suspicion. But when two and then three other children in the
family fell ill and began in the same way to designate Mother Samuel as
a witch, the parents were more willing to heed the hint thrown out by
the physician. The suspected woman was forcibly brought by Gilbert
Pickering, an uncle of the children, into their presence. The children
at once fell upon the ground "strangely tormented," and insisted upon
scratching Mother Samuel's hand. Meantime Lady Cromwell[21] visited at
the Throckmorton house, and, after an interview with Alice Samuel,
suffered in her dreams from her till at length she fell ill and died,
something over a year later. This confirmed what had been suspicion. To
detail all the steps taken to prove Mother Samuel guilty is unnecessary.
A degree of caution was used which was remarkable. Henry Pickering, a
relative, and some of his fellow scholars at Cambridge made an
investigation into the case, but decided with the others that the woman
was guilty. Mother Samuel herself laid the whole trouble to the
children's "wantonness." Again and again she was urged by the children
to confess. "Such were the heavenly and divine speeches of the children
in their fits to this old woman ... as that if a man had heard it he
would not have thought himself better edified at ten sermons." The
parents pleaded with her to admit her responsibility for the constantly
recurring sickness of their children, but she denied bitterly that she
was to blame. She was compelled to live at the Throckmorton house and to
be a witness constantly to the strange behavior of the children. The
poor creature was dragged back and forth, watched and experimented upon
in a dozen ways, until it is little wonder that she grew ill and spent
her nights in groaning. She was implored to confess and told that all
might yet be well. For a long time she persisted in her denial, but at
length in a moment of weakness, when the children had come out of their
fits at her chance exhortation to them, she became convinced that she
was guilty and exclaimed, "O sir, I have been the cause of all this
trouble to your children." The woman, who up to this time had shown some
spirit, had broken down. She now confessed that she had given her soul
to the Devil. A clergyman was hastily sent for, who preached a sermon of
repentance, upon which the distracted woman made a public confession.
But on the next day, after she had been refreshed by sleep and had been
in her own home again, she denied her confession. The constable now
prepared to take the woman as well as her daughter to the Bishop of
Lincoln, and the frightened creature again made a confession. In the
presence of the bishop she reiterated her story in detail and gave the
names of her spirits. She was put in gaol at Huntingdon and with her
were imprisoned her daughter Agnes and her husband John Samuel, who were
now accused by the Throckmorton children, and all three were tried at
the assizes in Huntingdon before Judge Fenner. The facts already
narrated were given in evidence, the seizures of the children at the
appearance of any of the Samuel family[22], the certainty with which the
children could with closed eyes pick Mother Samuel out of a crowd and
scratch her, the confessions of the crazed creature, all these evidences
were given to the court. But the strongest proof was that given in the
presence of the court. The daughter Agnes Samuel was charged to repeat,
"As I am a witch and consenting to the death of Lady Cromwell, I charge
thee, come out of her."[23] At this charge the children would at once
recover from their fits. But a charge phrased negatively, "As I am no
witch," was ineffectual. And the affirmative charge, when tried by some
other person, had no result. This was deemed conclusive proof. The woman
was beyond doubt guilty. The same method was applied with equally
successful issue to the father. When he refused to use the words of the
charge he was warned by the judge that he would endanger his life. He
gave way.
It is needless to say that the grand jury arraigned all three of the
family and that the "jury of life and death" found them guilty. It
needed but a five hours' trial.[24] The mother was induced to plead
pregnancy as a delay to execution, but after an examination by a jury
was adjudged not pregnant. The daughter had been urged to make the same
defence, but spiritedly replied, "It shall never be said that I was both
a witch and a whore." At the execution the mother made another
confession, in which she implicated her husband, but refused to the end
to accuse her daughter.
From beginning to end it had been the strong against the weak. Sir
Robert Throckmorton, Sir Henry Cromwell, William Wickham, Bishop of
Lincoln, the justices of the peace, Justice Fenner of the king's court,
the Cambridge scholars, the "Doctor of Divinitie," and two other
clergymen, all were banded together against this poor but respectable
family. In some respects the trial reminds us of one that was to take
place ninety-nine years later in Massachusetts. The part played by the
children in the two instances was very similar. Mother Samuel had hit
the nail on the head when she said that the trouble was due to the
children's "wantonness." Probably the first child had really suffered
from some slight ailment. The others were imitators eager to gain notice
and pleased with their success; and this fact was realized by some
people at the time. "It had been reported by some in the county, those
that thought themselves wise, that this Mother Samuel ... was an old
simple woman, and that one might make her by fayre words confesse what
they would." Moreover the tone of the writer's defense makes it evident
that others beside Mother Samuel laid the action of the Throckmorton
children to "wantonness." And six years later Samuel Harsnett, chaplain
to the Bishop of London and a man already influential, called the
account of the affair "a very ridiculous booke" and evidently believed
the children guilty of the same pretences as William Somers, whose
confessions of imposture he was relating.[25]
We have already observed that the Warboys affair was the only celebrated
trial of its sort in the last part of Elizabeth's reign--that is, from
the time of Reginald Scot to the accession of James I. This does not
mean that the superstition was waning or that the trials were on the
decrease. The records show that the number of trials was steadily
increasing. They were more widely distributed. London was still the
centre of the belief. Chief-Justice Anderson sent Joan Kerke to Tyburn
and the Middlesex sessions were still occupied with accusations. The
counties adjacent to it could still claim more than two-thirds of the
executions. But a far wider area was infected with the superstition.
Norfolk in East Anglia, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the
Midlands, and York and Northumberland in the North were all involved.
The truth is that there are two tendencies that appear very clearly
towards the last part of Elizabeth's reign. On the one hand the feeling
of the people against witchcraft was growing in intensity, while on the
other the administration at London was inclined to be more lenient.
Pardons and reprieves were issued to women already condemned,[26] while
some attempt was made to curb popular excitement. The attitude of the
queen towards the celebrated John Dee was an instance in point. Dee was
an eminent alchemist, astrologer, and spiritualist of his time. He has
left a diary which shows us his half mystic, half scientific pursuits.
In the earlier part of Mary's reign he had been accused of attempting
poison or magic against the queen and had been imprisoned and examined
by the privy council and by the Star Chamber. At Elizabeth's accession
he had cast the horoscope for her coronation day, and he was said to
have revealed to the queen who were her enemies at foreign courts. More
than once afterwards Dee was called upon by the queen to render her
services when she was ill or when some mysterious design against her
person was feared. While he dealt with many curious things, he had
consistently refused to meddle with conjuring. Indeed he had rebuked the
conjurer Hartley and had refused to help the bewitched Margaret Byrom of
Cleworth in Lancashire. Sometime about 1590 Dee's enemies--and he had
many--put in circulation stories of his success as a conjurer. It was
the more easy to do, because for a long time he had been suspected by
many of unlawful dealings with spirits. His position became dangerous.
He appealed to Elizabeth for protection and she gave him assurance that
he might push on with his studies. Throughout her life the queen
continued to stand by Dee,[27] and it was not until a new sovereign came
to the throne that he again came into danger. But the moral of the
incident is obvious. The privy council, so nervous about the conjurers
in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Catholic and Spanish plots,
was now resting easier and refused to be affrighted.
We have already referred to the pardons issued as one of the evidences
of the more lenient policy of the government. That policy appeared too
in the lessening rigor of the assize judges. The first half of
Elizabeth's reign had been marked by few acquittals. Nearly half the
cases of which we have record in the second part resulted in the
discharge of the accused. Whether the judges were taking their cue from
the privy council or whether some of them were feeling the same reaction
against the cruelty of the prosecutions, it is certain that there was a
considerable nullifying of the force of the belief. We shall see in the
chapter on Reginald Scot that his _Discoverie of Witchcraft_ was said to
have "affected the magistracy and the clergy." It is hard to lay one's
finger upon influences of this sort, but we can hardly doubt that there
was some connection between Scot's brave indictment of the witch-triers
and the lessening severity of court verdicts. When George Gifford, the
non-conformist clergyman at Maiden, wrote his _Dialogue concerning
Witches_, in which he earnestly deprecated the conviction of so many
witches, he dedicated the book "to the Right Worshipful Maister Robert
Clarke, one of her Maiesties Barons of her Highnesse Court of the
Exchequer," and wrote that he had been "delighted to heare and see the
wise and godly course used upon the seate of justice by your worship,
when such have bene arraigned." Unfortunately there is not much evidence
of this kind.
One other fact must not be overlooked. A large percentage of the cases
that went against the accused were in towns judicially independent of
the assize courts. At Faversham, at Lynn, at Yarmouth, and at
Leicester[28] the local municipal authorities were to blame for the
hanging of witches. The regular assize courts had nothing to do with the
matter. The case at Faversham in Kent was unusual. Joan Cason was
indicted for bewitching to death a three-year-old child. Eight of her
neighbors, seven of them women, "poore people," testified against her.
The woman took up her own cause with great spirit and exposed the
malicious dealings of her adversaries and also certain controversies
betwixt her and them. "But although she satisfied the bench," says
Holinshed, "and all the jurie touching hir innocencie ... she ...
confessed that a little vermin, being of colour reddish, of stature
lesse than a rat ... did ... haunt her house." She was willing too to
admit illicit relations with one Mason, whose housekeeper she had
been--probably the original cause of her troubles. The jury acquitted
her of witchcraft, but found her guilty of the "invocation of evil
spirits," intending to send her to the pillory. While the mayor was
admonishing her, a lawyer called attention to the point that the
invocation of evil spirits had been made a felony. The mayor sentenced
the woman to execution. But, "because there was no matter of invocation
given in evidence against hir, ... hir execution was staied by the space
of three daies." Sundry preachers tried to wring confessions from her,
but to no purpose. Yet she made so godly an end, says the chronicler,
that "manie now lamented hir death which were before hir utter
enimies."[29] The case illustrates vividly the clumsiness of municipal
court procedure. The mayor's court was unfamiliar with the law and
utterly unable to avert the consequences of its own finding. In the
regular assize courts, Joan Cason would probably have been sentenced to
four public appearances in the pillory.
The differences between the first half and the second half of
Elizabeth's reign have not been deemed wide enough by the writer to
justify separate treatment. The whole reign was a time when the
superstition was gaining ground. Yet in the span of years from Reginald
Scot to the death of Elizabeth there was enough of reaction to justify a
differentiation of statistics. In both periods, and more particularly in
the first, we may be sure that some of the records have been lost and
that a thorough search of local archives would reveal some trials of
which we have at present no knowledge. It was a time rich in mention of
witch trials, but a time too when but few cases were fully described.
Scot's incidental references to the varied experiences of Sir Roger
Manwood and of his uncle Sir Thomas Scot merely confirm an impression
gained from the literature of the time that the witch executions were
becoming, throughout the seventies and early eighties, too common to be
remarkable. For the second period we have record of probably a larger
percentage of all the cases. For the whole time from 1563, when the new
law went into effect, down to 1603, we have records of nearly fifty
executions. Of these just about two-thirds occurred in the earlier
period, while of the acquittals two-thirds belong to the later period.
It would be rash to attach too much significance to these figures. As a
matter of fact, the records are so incomplete that the actual totals
have little if any meaning and only the proportions can be
considered.[30] Yet it looks as if the forces which caused the
persecution of witches in England were beginning to abate; and it may
fairly be inquired whether some new factor may not have entered into the
situation. It is time to speak of Reginald Scot and of the exorcists.
[1] Who from a confession made in 1579 seems to have been her sister.
See the pamphlet _A Detection of damnable driftes, practised by three
Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde in Essex at the last Assizes there
holden, which were executed in Aprill, 1579_ (London, 1579).
[2] _E. g._: "I was afearde for he [the dog with horns] skypped and
leaped to and fro, and satte on the toppe of a nettle."
[3] Whether Agnes Waterhouse had a "daggar's knife" and whether the dog
had the face of an ape.
[4] An offer which indicates that he was acting as judge.
[5] She was questioned on her church habits. She claimed to be a regular
attendant; she "prayed right hartely there." She admitted, however, that
she prayed "in laten" because Sathan would not let her pray in English.
[6] There is of course the further possibility that the pamphlet account
was largely invented. A critical examination of the pamphlet tends to
establish its trustworthiness. See appendix A, Sec. 1.
[7] Alice Chandler was probably hanged at this time. The failure to
mention her name is easily explained when we remember that the pamphlet
was issued in two parts, as soon as possible after the event. Alice
Chandler's case probably did not come up for trial until the two parts
of the pamphlet had already been published. See _A Detection of damnable
driftes_.
[8] Mother Staunton, who had apparently made some pretensions to the
practice of magic, was arraigned on several charges. She had been
refused her requests by several people, who had thereupon suffered some
ills.
[9] It is possible that the whole affair started from the whim of a sick
child, who, when she saw Elleine Smith, cried, "Away with the witch."
[10] A caution here. The pamphlets were hastily compiled and perhaps
left out important facts.
[11] Her eight-year-old boy was probably illegitimate.
[12] Mother Waterhouse's knowledge of Latin, if that is more than the
fiction of a Protestant pamphleteer, is rather remarkable.
[13] Allowance must be made for a very prejudiced reporter, _i. e._, the
judge himself.
[14] These details were very probably suggested to her by the judge.
[15] Who promised her also "favour."
[16] The detestable methods of Justice Darcy come out in the case of a
woman from whom he threatened to remove her imps if she did not confess,
and by that means trapped her into the incriminating statement, "That
shal ye not."
[17] William Hooke had heard William Newman "bid the said Ales his wife
to beate it away." Comparable with this was the evidence of Margerie
Sammon who "sayeth that the saide widow Hunt did tell her that shee had
harde the said Joan Pechey, being in her house, verie often to chide and
vehemently speaking, ... and sayth that shee went in to see, ... shee
founde no bodie but herselfe alone."
[18] Reginald Scot, _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 542, says of this trial,
"In the meane time let anie man with good consideration peruse that
booke published by W. W. and it shall suffice to satisfie him in all
that may be required.... See whether the witnesses be not single, of
what credit, sex, and age they are; namelie lewd miserable and envious
poore people; most of them which speake to anie purpose being old women
and children of the age of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 yeares."
[19] There can be no doubt that Brian Darcy either wrote the account
himself or dictated it to "W. W." The frequent use of "me," meaning by
that pronoun the judge, indicates that he was responsible.
[20] It is some relief in this trial to read the testimony of John
Tendering about William Byett. He had a cow "in a strange case." He
could not lift it. He put fire under the cow, she got up and "there
stood still and fell a byting of stickes larger than any man's finger
and after lived and did well."
[21] Second wife of Sir Henry Cromwell, who was the grandfather of
Oliver.
[22] The children were strangely inconsistent. At the first they had
fits when Mother Samuel appeared. Later they were troubled unless Mother
Samuel were kept in the house, or unless they were taken to her house.
[23] This device seems to have been originally suggested by the children
to try Mother Samuel's guilt.
[24] The clergyman, "Doctor Dorrington," had been one of the leaders in
prosecuting them.
[25] Harsnett, _Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel_
(London, 1599), 92, 97.
[26] Among the manuscripts on witchcraft in the Bodleian Library are
three such pardons of witches for their witchcraft--one of Jane Mortimer
in 1595, one of Rosa Bexwell in 1600, and one of "Alice S.," without
date but under Elizabeth.
[27] In 1595 he was made warden of the Manchester Collegiate Church. Dee
has in our days found a biographer. See _John Dee_ (1527-1608), by
Charlotte Fell Smith (London, 1909).
[28] For the particular case, see Mary Bateson, ed., _Records of the
Borough of Leicester_ (Cambridge, 1899), III. 335; for the general
letters patent covering such cases see _id._, II, 365, 366.
[29] For this story see Ralph Holinshed, _Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland_ (London, 1577, reprinted 1586-1587 and
1807-1808), ed. of 1807-1808, IV, 891, 893. Faversham was then
"Feversham."
[30] Justice Anderson, when sentencing a witch to a year's imprisonment,
declared that this was the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth witch he had
condemned. This is good evidence that the records of many cases have
been lost. See Brit. Mus., Sloane MS. 831, f. 38.
CHAPTER III.
REGINALD SCOT.
From the chronicling of witch trials we turn aside in this chapter to
follow the career of the first great English opponent of the
superstition. We have seen how the attack upon the supposed creatures of
the Devil was growing stronger throughout the reign of Elizabeth. We
shall see how that attack was checked, at least in some degree, by the
resistance of one man. Few men of so quiet and studious life have
wrought so effectively as Reginald Scot. He came of a family well known
in Kent, but not politically aggressive. As a young man he studied at
Hart Hall[1] in Oxford, but left without taking his degree and returned
to Scots-Hall, where he settled down to the routine duties of managing
his estate. He gave himself over, we are told, to husbandry and
gardening and to a solid course of general reading in the obscure
authors that had "by the generality been neglected." In 1574 his studies
in horticulture resulted in the publication of _A Perfect Platforme of a
Hoppe-Garden and necessary instructions for the making and maintaining
thereof_. That the book ministered to a practical interest was evidenced
by the call for three editions within five years. Whether he now applied
himself to the study of that subject which was to be the theme of his
_Discoverie_, we do not know. It was a matter which had doubtless
arrested his attention even earlier and had enlisted a growing interest
upon his part. Not until a decade after his _Hoppe-Garden_, however, did
he put forth the epoch-making _Discoverie_. Nor does it seem likely that
he had been engaged for a long period on the actual composition. Rather,
the style and matter of the book seem to evince traces of hurry in
preparation. If this theory be true--and Mr. Brinsley Nicholson, his
modern commentator, has adduced excellent reasons for accepting
it[2]--there can be but one explanation, the St. Oses affair. That
tragedy, occurring within a short distance of his own home, had no doubt
so outraged his sense of justice, that the work which he had perhaps
long been contemplating he now set himself to complete as soon as
possible.[3] Even he who runs may read in Scot's strong sentences that
he was not writing for instruction only, to propound a new doctrine, but
that he was battling with the single purpose to stop a detestable and
wicked practice. Something of a dilettante in real life, he became in
his writing a man with an absorbing mission. That mission sprang not
indeed from indignation at the St. Oses affair alone. From the days of
childhood his experience had been of a kind to encourage skepticism. He
had been reared in a county where Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of
Kent, first came into prominence, and he had seen the downfall that
followed her public exposure.[4] In the year after he brought out his
_Hoppe-garden_, his county was again stirred by performances of a
supposedly supernatural character. Mildred Norrington, a girl of
seventeen,[5] used ventriloquism with such skill that she convinced two
clergymen and all her neighbors that she was possessed. In answer to
queries, the evil spirit that spoke through Mildred declared that "old
Alice of Westwell"[6] had sent him to possess the girl. Alice, the
spirit admitted, stood guilty of terrible witchcrafts. The demon's word
was taken, and Alice seems to have been "arraigned upon this
evidence."[7] But, through the justices' adroit management of the trial,
the fraud of the accuser was exposed. She confessed herself a pretender
and suffered "condign punishment." This case happened within six miles
of Scot's home and opened his eyes to the possibility of humbug. In the
very same year two pretenders, Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder, were
convicted in London. By vomiting pins and straws[8] they had convinced
many that they were bewitched, but the trickery was soon found out and
they were compelled to do public penance at St. Paul's.[9] We are not
told what was the fate of a detestable Mother Baker, who, when consulted
by the parents of a sick girl at New Romney in Kent, accused a neighbor
woman.[10] She said that the woman had made a waxen heart and pricked it
and by this means accomplished her evil purpose. In order to prove her
accusation, she had in the mean time concealed the wax figure of a heart
in the house of the woman she accused, and then pretended to find
it.[11] It is some satisfaction to know that the malicious
creature--who, during the history of witchcraft, had many imitators--was
caught and compelled to confess.
Scot learned, indeed, by observing marvels of this sort[12]--what it is
strange that many others did not learn--to look upon displays of the
supernatural with a good deal of doubt. How much he had ever believed in
them we do not know. It is not unlikely that in common with his
generation he had, as a young man, held a somewhat ill-defined opinion
about the Devil's use of witches. The belief in that had come down, a
comparatively innocuous tradition, from a primitive period. It was a
subject that had not been raised in speculation or for that matter in
court rooms. But since Scot's early manhood all this had been changed.
England had been swept by a tidal wave of suspicion. Hazy theological
notions had been tightened into rigid convictions. Convictions had
passed into legislative statutes and instructions to judges. The bench,
which had at first acted on the new laws with caution and a desire to
detect imposture, became infected with the fear and grew more ready to
discover witchcraft and to punish it. It is unnecessary to recapitulate
the progress of a movement already traced in the previous chapter.
Suffice it to say that the Kentish gentleman, familiarized with accounts
of imposture, was unwilling to follow the rising current of
superstition. Of course this is merely another way of saying that Scot
was unconventional in his mental operations and thought the subject out
for himself with results variant from those of his own generation. Here
was a new abuse in England, here was a wrong that he had seen spring up
within his own lifetime and in his own part of England. He made it his
mission as far as possible to right the wrong. "For so much," he says,
"as the mightie helpe themselves together, and the poore widowes crie,
though it reach to heaven, is scarse heard here upon earth: I thought
good (according to my poore abilitie) to make intercession, that some
part of common rigor, and some points of hastie judgement may be advised
upon."[13]
It was indeed a splendid mission and he was singularly well equipped for
it. He had the qualifications--scholarly training and the power of
scientific observation, a background of broad theological and scriptural
information, a familiarity with legal learning and practice, as well as
a command of vigorous and incisive language--which were certain to make
his work effective towards its object.
That he was a scholar is true in more senses than one. In his use of
deduction from classical writers he was something of a scholastic, in
his willingness to venture into new fields of thought he was a product
of the Renaissance, in his thorough use of research he reminds us of a
modern investigator. He gives in his book a bibliography of the works
consulted by him and one counts over two hundred Latin and thirty
English titles. His reading had covered the whole field of superstition.
To Cornelius Agrippa and to Wierus (Johann Weyer),[14] who had attacked
the tyranny of superstition upon the Continent, he owed an especial
debt. He had not, however, borrowed enough from them to impair in any
serious way the value of his own original contribution.
In respect to law, Scot was less a student than a man of experience. The
_Discoverie_, however, bristled with references which indicated a legal
way of thinking. He was almost certainly a man who had used the law.
Brinsley Nicholson believes that he had been a justice of the peace. In
any case he had a lawyer's sense of the value of evidence and a lawyer's
way of putting his case.
No less practical was his knowledge of theology and scripture. Here he
had to meet the baffling problems of the Witch of Endor. The story of
the witch who had called up before the frightened King Saul the spirit
of the dead Samuel and made him speak, stood as a lion in the path of
all opponents of witch persecution. When Scot dared to explain this Old
Testament tale as an instance of ventriloquism, and to compare it to the
celebrated case of Mildred Norrington, he showed a boldness in
interpretation of the Bible far in advance of his contemporaries.
His anticipation of present-day points of view cropped out perhaps more
in his scientific spirit than in any other way. For years before he put
pen to paper he had been conducting investigations into alleged cases of
conjuring and witchcraft, attending trials,[15] and questioning
clergymen and magistrates. For such observation he was most favorably
situated and he used his position in his community to further his
knowledge. A man almost impertinently curious was this sixteenth-century
student. When he learned of a conjurer whose sentence of death had been
remitted by the queen and who professed penitence for his crimes, he
opened a correspondence and obtained from the man the clear statement
that his conjuries were all impostures. The prisoner referred him to "a
booke written in the old Saxon toong by one Sir John Malborne, a divine
of Oxenford, three hundred yeares past," in which all these trickeries
are cleared up. Scot put forth his best efforts to procure the work from
the parson to whom it had been entrusted, but without success.[16] In
another case he attended the assizes at Rochester, where a woman was on
trial. One of her accusers was the vicar of the parish, who made several
charges, not the least of which was that he could not enunciate clearly
in church owing to enchantment. This explanation Scot carried to her and
she was able to give him an explanation much less creditable to the
clergyman of the ailment, an explanation which Scot found confirmed by
an enquiry among the neighbors. To quiet such rumors in the community
about the nature of the illness the vicar had to procure from London a
medical certificate that it was a lung trouble.[17]
Can we wonder that a student at such pains to discover the fact as to a
wrong done should have used barbed words in the portrayal of injustice?
Strong convictions spurred on his pen, already taught to shape vigorous
and incisive sentences. Not a stylist, as measured by the highest
Elizabethan standards of charm and mellifluence, he possessed a
clearness and directness which win the modern reader. By his methods of
analysis he displayed a quality of mind akin to and probably influenced
by that of Calvin, while his intellectual attitude showed the stimulus
of the Reformation.
He was indeed in his own restricted field a reformer. He was not only
the protagonist of a new cause, but a pioneer who had to cut through the
underbrush of opinion a pathway for speculation to follow. So far as
England was concerned, Scot found no philosophy of the subject, no
systematic defences or assaults upon the loosely constructed theory of
demonic agency. It was for him to state in definite terms the beliefs he
was seeking to overthrow. The Roman church knew fairly well by this time
what it meant by witchcraft, but English theologians and philosophers
would hardly have found common ground on any one tenet about the
matter.[18] Without exaggeration it may be asserted that Scot by his
assault all along the front forced the enemy's advance and in some sense
dictated his line of battle.
The assault was directed indeed against the centre of the opposing
entrenchments, the belief in the continuance of miracles. Scot declared
that with Christ and his apostles the age of miracles had passed, an
opinion which he supported by the authority of Calvin and of St.
Augustine. What was counted the supernatural assumed two forms--the
phenomena exhibited by those whom he classed under the wide term of
"couseners," and the phenomena said to be exhibited by the "poor doting
women" known as witches. The tricks and deceits of the "couseners" he
was at great pains to explain. Not less than one-third of his work is
given up to setting forth the methods of conjurers, card tricks,
sleight-of-hand performances, illusions of magic, materializations of
spirits, and the wonders of alchemy and astrology. In the range of his
information about these subjects, the discoverer was encyclopedic. No
current form of dabbling with the supernatural was left unexposed.
In his attack upon the phenomena of witchcraft he had a different
problem. He had to deal with phenomena the so-called facts of which were
not susceptible of any material explanation. The theory of a Devil who
had intimate relations with human beings, who controlled them and sent
them out upon maleficent errands, was in its essence a theological
conception and could not be absolutely disproved by scientific
observation. It was necessary instead to attack the idea on its _a
priori_ grounds. This attack Scot attempted to base on the nature of
spirits. Spirits and bodies, he urged, are antithetical and
inconvertible, nor can any one save God give spirit a bodily form. The
Devil, a something beyond our comprehension, cannot change spirit into
body, nor can he himself assume a bodily form, nor has he any power save
that granted him by God for vengeance. This being true, the whole
belief in the Devil's intercourse with witches is undermined. Such, very
briefly, were the philosophic bases of Scot's skepticism. Yet the more
cogent parts of his work were those in which he denied the validity of
any evidence so far offered for the existence of witches. What is
witchcraft? he asked; and his answer is worth quoting. "Witchcraft is in
truth a cousening art, wherin the name of God is abused, prophaned and
blasphemed, and his power attributed to a vile creature. In estimation
of the vulgar people, it is a supernaturall worke, contrived betweene a
corporall old woman, and a spirituall divell. The maner thereof is so
secret, mysticall, and strange, that to this daie there hath never beene
any credible witnes thereof."[19] The want of credible evidence was
indeed a point upon which Scot continually insisted with great force. He
pictured vividly the course which a witchcraft case often ran: "One sort
of such as are said to bee witches are women which be commonly old,
lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles; ... they are leane
and deformed, shewing melancholie in their faces; ... they are doting,
scolds, mad, divelish.... These miserable wretches are so odious unto
all their neighbors, and so feared, as few dare offend them, or denie
them anie thing they aske: whereby they take upon them, yea, and
sometimes thinke, that they can doo such things as are beyond the
abilitie of humane nature. These go from house to house, and from doore
to doore for a pot of milke, yest, drinke, pottage, or some such
releefe; without the which they could hardlie live.... It falleth out
many times, that neither their necessities, nor their expectation is
answered.... In tract of time the witch waxeth odious and tedious to hir
neighbors; ... she cursseth one, and sometimes another; and that from
the maister of the house, his wife, children, cattell, etc. to the
little pig that lieth in the stie.... Doubtlesse (at length) some of hir
neighbours die, or fall sicke."[20] Then they suspect her, says Scot,
and grow convinced that she is the author of their mishaps. "The witch,
... seeing things sometimes come to passe according to hir wishes, ...
being called before a Justice, ... confesseth that she hath brought such
things to passe. Wherein, not onelie she, but the accuser, and also the
Justice are fowlie deceived and abused."[21] Such indeed was the epitome
of many cases. The process from beginning to end was never better
described; the ease with which confessions were dragged from
weak-spirited women was never pictured more truly. With quite as keen
insight he displayed the motives that animated witnesses and described
the prejudices and fears that worked on jurors and judges. It was,
indeed, upon these factors that he rested the weight of his argument for
the negative.[22]
The affirmative opinion was grounded, he believed, upon the ignorance of
the common people, "assotted and bewitched" by the jesting or serious
words of poets, by the inventions of "lowd liers and couseners," and by
"tales they have heard from old doting women, or from their mother's
maids, and with whatsoever the grandfoole their ghostlie father or anie
other morrow masse preest had informed them."[23]
By the same method by which he opposed the belief in witchcraft he
opposed the belief in possession by an evil spirit. The known cases,
when examined, proved frauds. The instances in the New Testament he
seemed inclined to explain by the assumption that possession merely
meant disease.[24]
That Scot should maintain an absolute negative in the face of all
strange phenomena would have been too much to expect. He seems to have
believed, though not without some difficulty, that stones had in them
"certaine proper vertues which are given them of a speciall influence of
the planets." The unicorn's horn, he thought, had certain curative
properties. And he had heard "by credible report" and the affirmation of
"many grave authors" that "the wound of a man murthered reneweth
bleeding at the presence of a deere freend, or of a mortall enimie."[25]
His credulity in these points may be disappointing to the reader who
hopes to find in Scot a scientific rationalist. That, of course, he was
not; and his leaning towards superstition on these points makes one ask,
What did he really believe about witchcraft? When all the fraud and
false testimony and self-deception were excluded, what about the
remaining cases of witchcraft? Scot was very careful never to deny _in
toto_ the existence of witches. That would have been to deny the Bible.
What were these witches, then? Doubtless he would have answered that he
had already classified them under two heads: they were either
"couseners" or "poor doting women"--and by "couseners" he seems to have
meant those who used trickery and fraud. In other words, Scot distinctly
implied that there were no real witches--with powers given them by the
Devil. Would he have stood by this when pushed into a corner? It is just
possible that he would have done so, that he understood his own
implications, but hardly dared to utter a straighforward denial of the
reality of witchcraft. It is more likely that he had not altogether
thought himself out.
The immediate impression of Scot's book we know little about. Such
contemporary comment as we have is neutral.[26] That his book was read
painstakingly by every later writer on the subject, that it shortly
became the great support of one party in the controversy, that King
James deemed it worth while to write an answer, and that on his
accession to the throne he almost certainly ordered the book to be
burned by the common hangman,[27] these are better evidence than
absolutely contemporary notices to show that the _Discoverie_ exerted an
influence.
We cannot better suggest how radical Scot's position must have seemed to
his own time than by showing the point of view of another opponent of
witchcraft, George Gifford, a non-conformist clergyman.[28] He had read
the _Discoverie_ and probably felt that the theological aspect of the
subject had been neglected. Moreover it had probably been his fortune,
as Scot's, to attend the St. Oses trials. Three years after Scot's book
he brought out _A Discourse of the Subtill Practises of Devilles by
Witches_, and followed it six years later by _A Dialogue concerning
Witches_,[29] a book in which he expounded his opinions in somewhat more
popular fashion. Like Scot, he wrote to end, so far as possible, the
punishment of innocent women;[30] like Scot, he believed that most of
the evidence presented against them was worthless.[31] But on other
points he was far less radical. There were witches. He found them in
the Bible.[32] To be sure they were nothing more than pawns for the
Devil. He uses them "onely for a colour,"[33] that is, puts them forward
to cover his own dealings, and then he deludes them and makes them
"beleeve things which are nothing so."[34] In consequence they
frequently at their executions falsely accuse others of dreadful
witchcrafts. It is all the work of the Devil. But he himself cannot do
anything except through the power of God,[35] who, sometimes for
vengeance upon His enemies and sometimes to try His own people,[36]
permits the Evil One to do harm.[37]
Gifford of course never made the impression that Scot had made.[38] But
he represented the more conservative position and was the first in a
long line of writers who deprecated persecution while they accepted the
current view as to witchcraft; and therefore he furnishes a standard by
which to measure Scot, who had nothing of the conservative about him.
Scot had many readers and exerted a strong influence even upon those who
disagreed with him; but he had few or none to follow in his steps. It
was not until nearly a century later that there came upon the scene a
man who dared to speak as Scot had spoken. Few men have been so far
ahead of their time.
[1] Where George Gifford, who wrote a little later on the subject, was
also a student.
[2] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, Nicholson ed., introd., xxxv.
[3] That at least a part of it was written in 1583 appears from his own
words, where he speaks of the treatise of Leonardus Vairus on
fascination as "now this present yeare 1583 newlie published," _ibid._,
124.
[4] Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534) suffered from a nervous derangement
which developed into a religious mania. She was taught by some monks,
and then professed to be in communion with the Virgin Mary and performed
miracles at stated times. She denounced Henry VIII's divorce and gained
wide recognition as a champion of the queen and the Catholic church. She
was granted interviews by Archbishop Warham, by Thomas More, and by
Wolsey. She was finally induced by Cranmer to make confession, was
compelled publicly to repeat her confession in various places, and was
then executed; see _Dict. Nat. Biog._
[5] Illegitimate child.
[6] That is, very probably, Alice Norrington, the mother of Mildred.
[7] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 130.
[8] _Ibid._, 132.
[9] See _The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl
in two maydens within the Citie of London_; see also Holinshed,
_Chronicles_, ed. of 1807-1808, IV, 325, and John Stow, _Annals ... of
England_ (London, 1615), 678.
[10] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 258, 259.
[11] The spot she chose for concealing the token of guilt had been
previously searched.
[12] For another see _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 132-133.
[13] In his prefatory epistle "to the Readers."
[14] An incidental reference to Weyer in "W. W.'s" account of the
_Witches taken at St. Oses_ is interesting: "... whom a learned
Phisitian is not ashamed to avouche innocent, and the Judges that
denounce sentence of death against them no better than hangmen."
[15] _E. g., Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 5.
[16] _Ibid._, 466-469.
[17] _Ibid._, 5-6.
[18] _Ibid._, 15: "Howbeit you shall understand that few or none are
throughlie persuaded, resolved, or satisfied, that witches can indeed
accomplish all these impossibilities; but some one is bewitched in one
point, and some is coosened in another, untill in fine, all these
impossibilities, and manie mo, are by severall persons affirmed to be
true."
[19] _Discoverie_, 472.
[20] _Ibid._, 7-8.
[21] _Ibid._, 8.
[22] It was one of the points made by "witchmongers" that the existence
of laws against witches proved there were witches. This argument was
used by Sir Matthew Hale as late as 1664. Scot says on that point: "Yet
I confesse, the customes and lawes almost of all nations doo declare,
that all these miraculous works ... were attributed to the power of
witches. The which lawes, with the executions and judicials thereupon,
and the witches confessions, have beguiled almost the whole world."
_Ibid._, 220.
[23] _Discoverie_, 471, 472.
[24] _Ibid._, 512.
[25] _Ibid._, 303.
[26] Thomas Nash in his _Four Letters Confuted_ (London, 1593) refers to
it in a non-committal way as a work treating of "the diverse natures and
properties of Divels and Spirits." Gabriel Harvey's _Pierces
Supererogation_ (London, 1593), has the following mention of it:
"Scottes discoovery of Witchcraft dismasketh sundry egregious
impostures, and in certaine principall chapters, and special passages,
hitteth the nayle on the head with a witnesse; howsoever I could have
wished he had either dealt somewhat more curteously with Monsieur
Bodine, or confuted him somewhat more effectually." Professor Burr
informs me that there is in the British Museum (Harleian MSS. 2302) an
incomplete and unpublished reply to Scot. Its handwriting shows it
contemporary or nearly so. It is a series of "Reasons" why witches
should be believed in--the MS. in its present state beginning with the
"5th Reason" and breaking off in the midst of the 108th.
[27] See Nicholson's opinion on this, pp. xxxvii-xxxix of his
introduction to Scot's book.
[28] George Gifford was a Church of England clergyman whose Puritan
sympathies at length compelled him to identify himself publicly with the
non-conformist movement in 1584. For two years previous to that time he
had held the living of Maldon in Essex.
[29] A second edition of this book appeared in 1603. It was reprinted
for the Percy Society in 1842.
[30] _Dialogue_, ed. of 1603, prefatory letter and L-M 2 verso.
[31] _Discourse_, D 3 verso, G 4 verso; _Dialogue_, ed. of 1603, K 2-K 2
verso, L-L 2. See also _ibid._, K 4-K 4 verso: "As not long since a
rugged water spaniell having a chaine, came to a mans doore that had a
saut bitch, and some espied him in the darke, and said it was a thing as
bigge as a colt, and had eyes as great as saucers. Hereupon some came to
charge to him, and did charge him in the name of the Father, the Sonne,
and the Holy Ghost, to tell what he was. The dogge at the last told
them, for he spake in his language, and said, bowgh, and thereby they
did know what he was."
[32] _Discourse_, in the prefatory letter.
[33] _Ibid._, F 4 verso, F 5.
[34] _Dialogue_, ed of 1603, K 2 verso.
[35] _Ibid._, D 3 verso; _Discourse_, G 3 verso, H 3 verso.
[36] _Ibid._, D 2 verso.
[37] Gifford grew very forceful when he described the progress of a case
against a witch: "Some woman doth fal out bitterly with her neighbour:
there followeth some great hurt.... There is a suspicion conceived.
Within fewe yeares after shee is in some jarre with an other. Hee is
also plagued. This is noted of all. Great fame is spread of the matter.
Mother W. is a witch.... Wel, mother W. doth begin to bee very odious
and terrible unto many, her neighbours dare say nothing but yet in their
heartes they wish shee were hanged. Shortly after an other falleth sicke
and doth pine.... The neighbors come to visit him. Well neighbour, sayth
one, do ye not suspect some naughty dealing: did yee never anger mother
W? truly neighbour (sayth he) I have not liked the woman a long tyme. I
can not tell how I should displease her, unlesse it were this other day,
my wife prayed her, and so did I, that shee would keepe her hennes out
of my garden. Wee spake her as fayre as wee could for our lives. I
thinke verely she hath bewitched me. Every body sayth now that mother W.
is a witch in deede.... It is out of all doubt: for there were which saw
a weasil runne from her housward into his yard even a little before hee
fell sicke. The sicke man dieth, and taketh it upon his death that he is
bewitched: then is mother W. apprehended, and sent to prison, shee is
arrayned and condemned, and being at the gallows, taketh it uppon her
death that shee is not gylty." _Discourse_, G 4-G 4 verso. And so,
Gifford explains, the Devil is pleased, for he has put innocent people
into danger, he has caused witnesses to forswear themselves and jurymen
to render false verdicts.
[38] But his views were warmly seconded by Henry Holland, who in 1590
issued at Cambridge _A Treatise against Witchcraft_. Holland, however,
was chiefly interested in warning "Masters and Fathers of families that
they may learn the best meanes to purge their houses of all unclean
spirits." It goes without saying that he found himself at variance with
Scot, who, he declared, reduced witchcraft to a "cozening or poisoning
art." In the Scriptures he found the evidence that witches have a real
"confederacie with Satan himself," but he was frank to admit that the
proof of bargains of the sort in his own time could not be given.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXORCISTS.
In the narrative of English witchcraft the story of the exorcists is a
side-issue. Yet their performances were so closely connected with the
operations of the Devil and of his agents that they cannot be left out
of account in any adequate statement of the subject. And it is
impossible to understand the strength and weakness of the superstition
without a comprehension of the role that the would-be agents for
expelling evil spirits played. That the reign which had seen pass in
procession the bands of conjurers and witches should close with the
exorcists was to be expected. It was their part to complete the cycle of
superstition. If miracles of magic were possible, if conjurers could use
a supernatural power of some sort to assist them in performing wonders,
there was nothing very remarkable about creatures who wrought harm to
their fellows through the agency of evil spirits. And if witches could
send evil spirits to do harm, it followed that those spirits could be
expelled or exorcised by divine assistance. If by prayer to the Devil
demons could be commanded to enter human beings, they could be driven
out by prayer to God. The processes of reasoning were perfectly clear;
and they were easily accepted because they found adequate confirmation
in the New Testament. The gospels were full of narratives of men
possessed with evil spirits who had been freed by the invocation of God.
Of these stories no doubt the most quoted and the one most effective in
moulding opinion was the account of the dispossessed devils who had
entered into a herd of swine and plunged over a steep place into the
sea.
It must not be supposed that exorcism was a result of belief in
witchcraft. It was as old as the Christian church. It was still made use
of by the Roman church and, indeed, by certain Protestant groups. And
just at this time the Roman church found it a most important instrument
in the struggle against the reformed religions. In England Romanism was
waging a losing war, and had need of all the miracles that it could
claim in order to reestablish its waning credit. The hunted priests who
were being driven out by Whitgift were not unwilling to resort to a
practice which they hoped would regain for them the allegiance of the
common people. During the years 1585-1586 they had conducted what they
considered marvellous works of exorcism in Catholic households of
Buckinghamshire and Middlesex.[1] Great efforts had been made to keep
news of these seances from reaching the ears of the government, but
accounts of them had gained wide circulation and came to the privy
council. That body was of course stimulated to greater activity against
the Catholics.[2]
As a phase of a suppressed form of religion the matter might never have
assumed any significance. Had not a third-rate Puritan clergyman, John
Darrel, almost by accident hit upon the use of exorcism, the story of
its use would be hardly worth telling.[3] When this young minister was
not more than twenty, but already, as he says, reckoned "a man of hope,"
he was asked to cure a seventeen-year-old girl at Mansfield in
Nottingham, Katherine Wright.[4] Her disease called for simple medical
treatment. That was not Darrel's plan of operation. She had an evil
spirit, he declared. From four o'clock in the morning until noon he
prayed over her spirit. He either set going of his own initiative the
opinion that possessed persons could point out witches, or he quickly
availed himself of such a belief already existing. The evil spirit, he
declared, could recognize and even name the witch that had sent it as
well as the witch's confederates. All of this was no doubt suggested to
the possessed girl and she was soon induced to name the witch that
troubled her. This was Margaret Roper, a woman with whom she was upon
bad terms. Margaret Roper was at once taken into custody by the
constable. She happened to be brought before a justice of the peace
possessing more than usual discrimination. He not only discharged
her,[5] but threatened John Darrel with arrest.[6]
This was in 1586. Darrel disappeared from view for ten years or so,
when he turned up at Burton-upon-Trent, not very far from the scene of
his first operations. Here he volunteered to cure Thomas Darling. The
story is a curious one and too long for repetition. Some facts must,
however, be presented in order to bring the story up to the point at
which Darrel intervened. Thomas Darling, a young Derbyshire boy, had
become ill after returning from a hunt. He was afflicted with
innumerable fits, in which he saw green angels and a green cat. His aunt
very properly consulted a physician, who at the second consultation
thought it possible that the child was bewitched. The aunt failed to
credit the diagnosis. The boy's fits continued and soon took on a
religious character. Between seizures he conversed with godly people.
They soon discovered that the reading of the Scriptures brought on
attacks. This looked very like the Devil's work. The suggestion of the
physician was more seriously regarded. Meanwhile the boy had overheard
the discussion of witchcraft and proceeded to relate a story. He had
met, he said, a "little old woman" in a "gray gown with a black fringe
about the cape, a broad thrimmed hat, and three warts on her face."[7]
Very accidentally, as he claimed, he offended her. She angrily said a
rhyming charm that ended with the words, "I wil goe to heaven, and thou
shalt goe to hell," and stooped to the ground.
The story produced a sensation. Those who heard it declared at once that
the woman must have been Elizabeth Wright, or her daughter Alse
Gooderidge, women long suspected of witchcraft. Alse was fetched to the
boy. She said she had never seen him, but her presence increased the
violence of his fits. Mother and daughter were carried before two
justices of the peace, who examined them together with Alse's husband
and daughter. The women were searched for special marks in the usual
revolting manner with the usual outcome, but only Alse herself was sent
to gaol.[8]
The boy grew no better. It was discovered that the reading of certain
verses in the first chapter of John invariably set him off.[9] The
justices of the peace put Alse through several examinations, but with
little result. Two good witches were consulted, but refused to help
unless the family of the bewitched came to see them.
Meantime a cunning man appeared who promised to prove Alse a witch. In
the presence of "manie worshipfull personages" "he put a paire of new
shooes on her feete, setting her close to the fire till the shooes being
extreame hot might constrayne her through increase of the paine to
confesse." "This," says the writer, "was his ridiculous practice." The
woman "being throghly heated desired a release" and offered to confess,
but, as soon as her feet were cooled, refused. No doubt the justices of
the peace would have repudiated the statement that the illegal process
of torture was used. The methods of the cunning man were really nothing
else.
The woman was harried day and night by neighbors to bring her to
confess.[10] At length she gave way and, in a series of reluctant
confessions, told a crude story of her wrong-doings that bore some
slight resemblance to the boy's tale, and involved the use of a spirit
in the form of a dog.
Now it was that John Darrel came upon the ground eager to make a name
for himself. Darling had been ill for three months and was not
improving. Even yet some of the boy's relatives and friends doubted if
he were possessed. Not so Darrel. He at once undertook to pray and fast
for the boy. According to his own account his efforts were singularly
blessed. At all events the boy gradually improved and Darrel claimed the
credit. As for Alse Gooderidge, she was tried at the assizes, convicted
by the jury, and sentenced by Lord Chief-Justice Anderson to
imprisonment. She died soon after.[11] This affair undoubtedly widened
Darrel's reputation.
Not long after, a notable case of possession in Lancashire afforded him
a new opportunity to attract notice. The case of Nicholas Starchie's
children provoked so much comment at the time that it is perhaps worth
while to go back and bring the narrative up to the point where Darrel
entered.[12] Two of Starchie's children had one day been taken ill most
mysteriously, the girl "with a dumpish and heavie countenance, and with
a certaine fearefull starting and pulling together of her body." The boy
was "compelled to shout" on the way to school. Both grew steadily
worse[13] and the father consulted Edmund Hartley, a noted conjurer of
his time. Hartley quieted the children by the use of charms. When he
realized that his services would be indispensable to the father he made
a pretence of leaving and so forced a promise from Starchie to pay him
40 shillings a year. This ruse was so successful that he raised his
demands. He asked for a house and lot, but was refused. The children
fell ill again. The perplexed parent now went to a physician of
Manchester. But the physician "sawe no signe of sicknes." Dr. Dee, the
famous astrologer and friend of Elizabeth, was summoned. He advised the
help of "godlie preachers."[14]
Meantime the situation in the afflicted family took a more serious turn.
Besides Mr. Starchie's children, three young wards of his, a servant,
and a visitor, were all taken with the mysterious illness. The modern
reader might suspect that some contagious disease had gripped the
family, but the irregular and intermittent character of the disease
precludes that hypothesis. Darrel in his own pamphlet on the matter
declares that when the parents on one occasion went to a play the
children were quiet, but that when they were engaged in godly exercise
they were tormented, a statement that raises a suspicion that the
disease, like that of the Throckmorton children, was largely imaginary.
But the divines were at work. They had questioned the conjurer, and had
found that he fumbled "verie ill favouredlie" in the repetition of the
Lord's Prayer. He was haled before a justice of the peace, who began
gathering evidence against him and turned him over to the assizes. There
it came out that he had been wont to kiss the Starchie children, and had
even attempted, although without success, to kiss a maid servant. In
this way he had presumably communicated the evil spirit--a new notion.
The court could find no law, however, upon which to hang him. He had
bewitched the children, but he had bewitched none of them to death, and
therefore had not incurred the death penalty. But the father leaped into
the gap. He remembered that he had seen the conjurer draw a magic circle
and divide it into four parts and that he had bidden the witness step
into the quarters one after another. Making such circles was definitely
mentioned in the law as felony. Hartley denied the charge, but to no
purpose. He was convicted of felony[15]--so far as we can judge, on this
unsupported afterthought of a single witness--and was hanged. Sympathy,
however, would be inappropriate. In the whole history of witchcraft
there were few victims who came so near to deserving their fate.
This was the story up to the time of Darrel's arrival. With Darrel came
his assistant, George More, pastor of a church in Derbyshire. The two at
once recognized the supernatural character of the case they were to
treat and began religious services for the stricken family. It was to no
effect. "All or most of them joined together in a strange and
supernatural loud whupping that the house and grounde did sounde
therwith again."
But the exorcists were not by any means disheartened. On the following
day, in company with another minister, they renewed the services and
were able to expel six of the seven spirits. On the third day they
stormed and took the last citadel of Satan. Unhappily the capture was
not permanent. Darrel tells us himself that the woman later became a
Papist[16] and the evil spirit returned.
The exorcist now turned his skill upon a young apprenticed musician of
Nottingham. According to Darrel's story of the affair,[17] William
Somers had nine years before met an old woman who had threatened him.
Again, more than a year before Darrel came to Nottingham, Somers had had
two encounters with a strange woman "at a deep cole-pit, hard by the
way-side." Soon afterwards he "did use such strang and idle kinde of
gestures in laughing, dancing and such like lighte behaviour, that he
was suspected to be madd." He began to suffer from bodily distortions
and to evince other signs of possession which created no little
excitement in Nottingham.