"Dickensons Wife, Henry Priestleys Wife, and his Lad, Alice Hargreene
Widow, Jane Davies, William Davies, and the Wife of Henry Fackes, and
her Sons John and Miles, the Wife of ---- Denneries, James Hargreene
of Marsdead, Loynd's Wife, one James his Wife, Saunders his Wife, and
Saunders himself _sicut credit_, one Laurence his Wife, one Saunder
Pyn's Wife of Barraford, one Holgate and his Wife of Leonards of the
West close."]
"_Edmund Robinson_ of _Pendle_, father of ye sd _Edmunde Robinson_,
the aforesaid informer, upon oath saith, that upon _All Saints' Day_,
he sent his sone, the aforesed informer, to fetch home two kyne to
seale, and saith yt hee thought his sone stayed longer than he should
have done, went to seeke him, and in seekinge him, heard him cry very
pittifully, and found him soe afraid and distracted, yt hee neither
knew his father, nor did know where he was, and so continued very
neare a quarter of an hower before he came to himselfe,[58] and he
tould this informer, his father, all the particular passages yt are
before declared in the said _Edmund Robinson_, his sone's
information."
[Footnote 58: The learned "practitioner in physick," Mr. William
Drage, in his "Treatise of Diseases from Witchcraft," published Lond.
1668, 4to. p. 22, recommends "birch" in such cases, "as a specifical
medicine, antipathetical to demons." One can only lament that this
valuable remedy was not vigorously applied in the present instance, as
well as in most others in which these juvenile sufferers appear. I
doubt whether, in the whole Materia Medica, a more powerful
_Lamia-fuge_ could have been discovered, or one which would have been
more universally successful, if applied perseveringly, whenever the
suspicious symptoms recurred. The following is, however, Drage's great
panacea in these cases, a mode of treatment which must have been
vastly popular, judging from its extensive adoption in all parts of
the country: "_Punish the witch, threaten to hang her if she helps not
the sick, scratch her and fetch blood. When she is cast into prison
the sick are some time delivered, some time he or she (they are most
females, most old women, and most poor,) must transfer the disease to
other persons, sometimes to a dog, or horse, or cow, &c. Threaten her
and beat her to remove it._"--Drage, p. 23.]
The name of Margaret Johnson does not appear in Edmund Robinson's
examination. Whether accused or not, the opportunity was too alluring
to be lost by a personage full of matter, being like old Mause
Headrigg, "as a bottle that lacketh vent," and too desirous of
notoriety, to let slip such an occasion. She made, on the 2nd of March
following, before the same justices who had taken Robinson's
examination, the following confession, which must have been considered
a most instructive one by those who were in search of some short _vade
mecum_ of the statistics of witchcraft in Pendle:--
"THE CONFESSION OF MARGARET JOHNSON.
"That betwixt seaven and eight yeares since, shee beeinge in her owne
house in _Marsden_, in a greate passion of anger and discontent, and
withall pressed with some want, there appeared unto her a spirit or
devill in ye proportion or similitude of a man, apparrelled in a suite
of blacke, tyed about with silk points, who offered yt if shee would
give him her soule hee would supply all her wants, and bringe to her
whatsoever shee did neede. And at her appointment would in revenge
either kill or hurt whom or what shee desyred, weare it man or beast.
And saith, yt after a solicitation or two shee contracted and
covenanted with ye said devill for her soule. And yt ye said devill or
spirit badde her call him by the name of _Mamilian_. And when shee
would have him to doe any thinge for her, call in _Mamilian_, and hee
would bee ready to doe her will. And saith, yt in all her talke or
conference shee calleth her said devill, _Mamil_ my God. Shee further
saith, yt ye said _Mamilian_, her devill, (by her consent) did abuse
and defile her body by comittinge wicked uncleannesse together. And
saith, yt shee was not at the greate meetings at _Hoarestones_, at the
forest of _Pendle_, upon All-Saints Day, where ----. But saith yt shee
was at a second meetinge ye Sunday next after All-Saints Day, at the
place aforesaid; where there was at yt tyme between 30 and 40 witches,
who did all ride to the said meetinge, and the end of theire said
meeting was to consult for the killinge and hurtinge of men and
beasts. And yt besides theire particular familiars or spirits, there
was one greate or grand devill or spirit more eminent than the rest.
And if any desyre to have a greate and more wonderfull devill, whereby
they may have more power to hurt, they may have one such. And sayth,
yt such witches as have sharp bones given them by the devill to pricke
them, have no pappes or dugges whereon theire devill may sucke, but
theire devill receiveth bloud from the place, pricked with the bone.
And they are more grand witches than any yt have marks. Shee allsoe
saith, yt if a witch have but one marke, shee hath but one spirit, if
two then two spirits, if three yet but two spirits. And saith, yt
theire spirits usually have knowledge of theire bodies. And being
desyred to name such as shee knewe to be witches, shee named, &c.[59]
And if they would torment a man, they bid theire spirit goe and tormt.
him in any particular place. And yt Good-Friday is one constant day
for a yearely generall meetinge of witches. And yt on Good-Friday
last, they had a meetinge neare _Pendle_ water syde. Shee alsoe saith,
that men witches usually have women spirits, and women witches men
spirits. And theire devill or spirit gives them notice of theire
meetinge, and tells them the place where it must bee. And saith, if
they desyre to be in any place upon a sodaine, theire devill or spirit
will upon a rodde, dogge, or any thinge els, presently convey them
thither: yea, into any roome of a man's house. But shee saith it is
not the substance of theire bodies, but theire spirit assumeth such
form and shape as goe into such roomes. Shee alsoe saith, yt ye devill
(after he begins to sucke) will make a pappe or dugge in a short tyme,
and the matter which hee sucks is blood. And saith yt theire devills
can cause foule weather and storms, and soe did at theire meetings.
Shee alsoe saith yt when her devill did come to sucke her pappe, hee
usually came to her in ye liknes of a cat, sometymes of one colour and
sometymes of an other. And yt since this trouble befell her, her
spirit hath left her, and shee never sawe him since."
[Footnote 59: The omission here is thus supplied in Baines's
Transcript; but the actual names are scarcely to be recognised, from
the clerical errors of the copy:--
"One Pickerne and his wife both of Wyndwall,
Rawson of Clore and his wife
Duffice wife of Clore by the water side
Cartmell the wife of Clore
And Jane of the hedgend in Maresden."]
On the evidence contained in these examinations several persons were
committed for trial at Lancaster, and seventeen, on being tried at the
ensuing assizes, were found guilty by the jury. The judge before whom
the trial took place was, however, more sagacious and enlightened than
his predecessors, Bromley and Altham. He respited the execution of the
prisoners; and on the case being reported to the king in council, the
Bishop of Chester, Dr. Bridgman, was required to investigate the
circumstances. The inquiry was instituted at Chester, and four of the
convicted witches, namely, Margaret Johnson, Frances Dickonson, Mary
Spencer, and the wife of one of the Hargreaves's, were sent to London,
and examined, first by the king's physicians and surgeons, and
afterwards by Charles the first in person.
"A stranger scene" to quote Dr. Whitaker's concluding paragraph "can
scarcely be conceived; and it is not easy to imagine whether the
untaught manners, rude dialect, and uncouth appearance of these poor
foresters, would more astonish the king; or his dignity of person and
manners, together with the splendid scene with which they were
surrounded, would overwhelm them. The end, however, of the business
was, that strong presumptions appeared of the boy having been suborned
to accuse them falsely, and they were accordingly dismissed. The boy
afterwards confessed that he was suborned."[60]
[Footnote 60: Webster gives the sequel of this curious case of
imposture:--"Four of them, to wit Margaret Johnson, Francis Dicconson,
Mary Spenser, and Hargraves Wife, were sent for up to London, and were
viewed and examined by his Majesties Physicians and Chirurgeons, and
after by his Majesty and the Council, and no cause of guilt appearing
but great presumptions of the boys being suborned to accuse them
falsely. Therefore it was resolved to separate the boy from his
Father, they having both followed the women up to London, they were
both taken and put into several prisons asunder. Whereupon shortly
after the Boy confessed that he was taught and suborned to devise, and
feign those things against them, and had persevered in that wickedness
by the counsel of his Father, and some others, whom envy, revenge and
hope of gain had prompted on to that devillish design and villany; and
he also confessed, that upon that day when he said that they met at
the aforesaid house or barn, he was that very day a mile off, getting
Plums in his Neighbours Orchard. And that this is a most certain
truth, there are many persons yet living, of sufficient reputation and
integrity, that can avouch and testifie the same; and besides, what I
write is the most of it true, upon my own knowledge, and the whole I
have had from his own mouth."--_Displaying of Witchcraft_, p. 277.]
In Dr. Whitaker's astonishment that Margaret Johnson should make the
confession she appears to have done, in a clear case of imposture, few
of his readers will be disposed to participate, who are at all
conversant with the trials of reputed witches in this country.
Confessions were so common on those occasions, that there is, I
believe, not a single instance of any great number of persons being
convicted of witchcraft at one time, some of whom did not make a
confession of guilt. Nor is there anything extraordinary in that
circumstance, when it is remembered that many of them sincerely
believed in the existence of the powers attributed to them; and
others, aged and of weak understanding, were, in a measure, coerced by
the strong persuasion of their guilt, which all around them
manifested, into an acquiescence in the truth of the accusation. In
many cases the confessions were made in the hope, and no doubt with
the promise, seldom performed, that a respite from punishment would be
eventually granted. In other instances, there is as little doubt, that
they were the final results of irritation, agony, and despair.[61] The
confessions are generally composed of "such stuff as dreams are made
of," and what they report to have occurred, might either proceed, when
there was no intention to fabricate, from intertwining the fantastic
threads which sometimes stream upon the waking senses from the land of
shadows, or be caused by those ocular hallucinations of which medical
science has supplied full and satisfactory solution. There is no
argument which so long maintained its ground in support of witchcraft
as that which was founded on the confessions referred to. It was the
last plank clung to by many a witch-believing lawyer and divine. And
yet there is none which will less bear critical scrutiny and
examination, or the fallacy of which can more easily be shown, if any
particular reported confession is taken as a test and subjected to a
searching analysis and inquiry.
[Footnote 61: The confession in the "Amber Witch" is a true picture,
drawn from the life. What is there, indeed, unlike truth in that
wonderful fiction?]
It is said that we owe to the grave and saturnine Monarch, who
extended his pardon to the seventeen convicted in 1633, that happy
generalisation of the term, which appropriates honourably to the sex
in Lancashire the designation denoting the fancied crime of a few
miserable victims of superstition. That gentle sex will never
repudiate a title bestowed by one, little given to the playful sports
of fancy, whose sorrows and unhappy fate have never wanted their
commiseration, and who distinguished himself on this memorable
occasion, at a period when
"'twas the time's plague
That madmen led the blind,"
--in days when philosophy stumbled and murder arrayed itself in the
robes of justice--by an enlightened exercise of the kingly prerogative
of mercy. Proceeding from such a fountain of honour, and purified by
such an appropriation, the title of witch has long lost its original
opprobrium in the County Palatine, and survives only to call forth the
gayest and most delightful associations. In process of time even the
term _witchfinder_ may lose the stains which have adhered to it from
the atrocities of Hopkins, and may be adopted by general usage, as a
sort of companion phrase, to signify the fortunate individual, who, by
an union with a Lancashire witch, has just asserted his indefeasible
title to be considered as the happiest of men.