_Hecate._ What death is't you desire for Almachildes?
_Duchess._ A sudden and a subtle.
_Hecate._ Then I've fitted you.
Here be the gifts of both; sudden and subtle:
His picture made in wax and gently molten
By a blue fire kindled with dead men's eyes
Will waste him by degrees.
_Duchess._ In what time, prithee?
_Hecate._ Perhaps in a moon's progress.
_Middleton's Witch_, edit. 1778, p. 100.
None of the offices in the Witches rubric had higher classical warrant
than this method, a favourite one, it appears, of Mother Demdike, but
in which Anne Redfern had the greatest skill of any of these Pendle
witches, of victimizing by moulding and afterwards pricking or burning
figures of clay representing the individual whose life was aimed at.
Horace, Lib. i. Sat. 8, mentions both waxen and woollen images--
Lanea et effigies erat altera cerea, &c.
And it appears from Tacitus, that the death of Germanicus was supposed
to have been sought by similar practices. By such a Simulachrum, or
image, the person was supposed to be devoted to the infernal deities.
According to the Platonists, the effect produced arose from the
operation of the sympathy and synergy of the Spiritus Mundanus, (which
Plotinus calls [Greek: ton megan goêta] [Transcriber's Note: typo "t"
for "ton" in original Greek], the grand magician,) such as they resolve
the effect of the weaponsalve and other magnetic cures into. The
following is the Note in Brand on this part of witchcraft:--
King James, in his "Dæmonology," book ii., chap. 5, tells
us, that "the Devil teacheth how to make pictures of wax or
clay, that, by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear
the name of may be continually melted or dried away by
continual sickness."
See Servius on the 8th Eclogue of Virgil; Theocritus, Idyll,
ii., 22; Hudibras, part II., canto ii., l. 351.
Ovid says:
"Devovet absentes, simulachraque cerea figit
Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus."
_Heroid._ Ep. vi., l. 91.
See also "Grafton's Chronicle," p. 587, where it is laid to
the charge (among others) of Roger Bolinbrook, a cunning
necromancer, and Margery Jordane, the cunning Witch of Eye,
that they, at the request of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester,
had devised an image of wax, representing the king, (Henry
the Sixth,) which by their sorcery a little and a little
consumed; intending thereby in conclusion to waste and
destroy the king's person. Shakspeare mentions this, Henry
VI., P. II., act i., sc. 4.
It appears, from Strype's "Annals of the Reformation,", vol.
i., p. 8, under anno 1558, that Bishop Jewel, preaching
before the queen, said, "It may please your grace to
understand that witches and sorcerers within these few last
years are marvellously increased within your grace's realm.
Your grace's subjects pine away, even unto the death; their
colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is
benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God they never
practise _further than upon the subject_." "This," Strype
adds, "I make no doubt was the occasion of bringing in a
bill, the next parliament, for making enchantments and
witchcraft felony." One of the bishop's strong expressions
is, "_These eyes have seen_ most evident and manifest marks
of their wickedness."
It appears from the same work, vol. iv., p. 6, sub anno
1589, that "one Mrs. Dier had practised conjuration against
the queen, to work some mischief to her majesty; for which
she was brought into question: and accordingly her words and
doings were sent to Popham, the queen's attorney, and
Egerton, her solicitor, by Walsingham, the secretary, and
Sir Thomas Heneage, her vice-chamberlain, for their
judgment, whose opinion was that Mrs. Dier was not within
the compass of the statute touching witchcraft, for that she
did no act, and spake certain lewd speeches tending to that
purpose, but neither set figure nor made pictures." _Ibid._,
vol. ii., p. 545, sub anno 1578, Strype says: "Whether it
were the effect of magic, or proceeded from some natural
cause, but the queen was in some part of this year under
excessive anguish _by pains of her teeth_, insomuch that she
took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great
torment night and day."
Andrews, in his "Continuation of Henry's History of Great
Britain," 4to, p. 93, tells us, speaking of Ferdinand, Earl
of Derby, who in the reign of Queen Elizabeth died by
poison, "The credulity of the age attributed his death to
witchcraft. The disease was odd, and operated as a perpetual
emetic; and a _waxen image, with hair like that of the
unfortunate earl_, found in his chamber, reduced every
suspicion to certainty."
"The wife of Marshal d'Ancre was apprehended, imprisoned,
and beheaded for a witch, upon a surmise that she had
inchanted the queen to dote upon her husband; and they say
the young king's picture was found in her closet, in virgin
wax, with one leg melted away. When asked by her judges what
spells she had made use of to gain so powerful an ascendancy
over the queen, she replied, 'that ascendancy only which
strong minds ever gain over weak ones.'" Seward's "Anecdotes
of some Distinguished Persons," &c., vol. ii., p. 215.
Blagrave, in his "Astrological Practice of Physick," p. 89,
observes that "the way which the witches usually take for to
afflict man or beast in this kind is, as I conceive, done by
image or model, made in the likeness of that man or beast
they intend to work mischief upon, and by the subtlety of
the devil made at such hours and times when it shall work
most powerfully upon them, by thorn, pin, or needle, pricked
into that limb or member of the body afflicted."
This is farther illustrated by a passage in one of Daniel's
Sonnets:
"The slie inchanter, when to work his will
And secret wrong on some forspoken wight,
Frames waxe, in forme to represent aright
The poore unwitting wretch he meanes to kill,
And prickes the image, framed by magick's skill,
Whereby to vex the partie day and night."
_Son. 10; from Poems and Sonnets annexed to "Astrophil
and Stella_," 4to, 1591.
Again, in "Diaria, or the Excellent Conceitful Sonnets of
H.C.," (Henry Constable,) 1594:
"Witches, which some murther do intend,
Doe make a picture, and doe shoote at it;
And in that part where they the picture hit,
The parties self doth languish to his end."
_Decad. II., Son. ii._
Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," &c., p. 66, says that
witches "take likewise the roots of mandrake, according to
some, or, as I rather suppose, the _roots of briony_, which
simple folke take for the true mandrake, and make thereof an
ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they
intend to exercise their witchcraft." He tells us, _ibid._,
p. 26, "Some plants have roots with a number of threads,
like beards, as mandrakes, whereof witches and impostors
make an ugly image, giving it the form of the face at the
top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad
beard down to the feet."--_Brand's Antiquities_, vol. iii.
p. 9.
Ben Johnson has not forgotten this superstition in his learned and
fanciful _Masque of Queens_, in which so much of the lore of
witchcraft is embodied. There are few finer things in English poetry
than his 3rd Charm:--
The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain,
The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,
And the frog peeps out o' the fountain;
The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a turning;
The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a burning:
The ditch is made, and our nails the spade,
_With pictures full, of wax and of wool;
Their livers I stick, with needles quick;_
There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood.
Quickly, dame, then bring your part in,
Spur, spur upon little Martin,
Merrily, merrily, make him sail,
A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail,
Fire above, and fire below,
With a whip in your hand, to make him go.
_Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford_, vol. vii. p. 121.
Meric Casaubon, who is always an amusing writer, and whose works,
notwithstanding his appetite for the wonderful, do not merit the total
oblivion into which they have fallen, is very angry with Jerome
Cardan, an author not generally given to scepticism, for the
hesitation he displays on the subject of these waxen images:--
I know some who question not the power of devils or witches;
yet in this particular are not satisfied how such a thing
can be. For there is no relation or sympathy in nature,
(saith one, who hath written not many years ago,) between a
man and his effigies, that upon the pricking of the one the
other should grow sick. It is upon another occasion that he
speaks it; but his exception reacheth this example equally.
A wonder to me he should so argue, who in many things hath
very well confuted the incredulity of others, though in some
things too credulous himself. If we must believe nothing but
what we can reduce to natural, or, to speak more properly,
(for I myself believe the devil doth very little, but by
nature, though to us unknown,) manifest causes, he doth
overthrow his own grounds, and leaves us but very little of
magical operations to believe. But of all men, Cardan had
least reason to except against this kind of magick as
ridiculous or incredible, who himself is so full of
incredible stories in that kind, upon his own credit alone,
that they had need to be of very easie belief that believe
him, especially when they know (whereof more afterwards)
what manner of man he was. But I dare say, that from Plato's
time, who, among other appurtenances of magic, doth mention
these, [Greek: kêrina mimêmata] [Transcriber's Note: typo
"mimkmata" for "mimêmata" in original Greek] that is, as
Ovid doth call them, _Simulachra cerea_, or as Horace,
_cereas imagines_, (who also in another place more
particularly describes them,) there is not any particular
rite belonging to that art more fully attested by histories
of all ages than this is. Besides, who doth not know that
it is the devil's fashion (we shall meet with it afterwards
again) to amuse his servants and vassals with many rites and
ceremonies, which have certainly no ground in nature, no
relation or sympathy to the thing, as for other reasons, so
to make them believe, they have a great hand in the
production of such and such effects; when, God knows, many
times all that they do, though taught and instructed by him,
is nothing at all to the purpose, and he, in very deed, is
the only agent, by means which he doth give them no account
of. Bodinus, in his preface to his "Dæmonology," relateth,
that three waxen images, whereof one of Queen Elizabeth's,
of glorious memory, and two other, _Reginæ proximorum_, of
two courtiers, of greatest authority under the queen, were
found in the house of a priest at Islington, a magician, or
so reputed, to take away their lives. This he doth repeat
again in his second book, chap. 8, but more particularly
that it was in the year of the Lord 1578, and that Legatus
Angliæ and many Frenchmen did divulge it so; but withal, in
both places he doth add, that the business was then under
trial, and not yet perfectly known. I do not trust my
memory: I know my age and my infirmities. Cambden, I am
sure, I have read; and read again; but neither in him, nor
in Bishop Carleton's "Thankful Remembrancer," do I remember
any such thing. Others may, perchance. Yet, in the year
1576, I read in both of some pictures, representing some
that would have kill'd that glorious queen with a motto,
_Quorsum hæc, alio properantibus!_ which pictures were made
by some of the conspiracy for their incouragement; but
intercepted, and showed, they say, to the queen. Did the
time agree, it is possible these pictures might be the
ground of those mistaken, if mistaken, waxen images, which I
desire to be taught by others who can give a better
account.--_Casaubon's (M.) Treatise, proving Spirits,
Witches, and Supernatural Operations_, 1672. 12mo., p. 92.
In Scotland this practice was in high favour with witches, both in
ancient and modern times. The lamentable story of poor King Duff, as
related by Hector Boethius, a story which has blanched the cheek and
spoiled the rest of many a youthful reader, is too well known to need
extracting. Even so late as 1676, Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, (See
Scott's _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_, p. 323,) apparently a
man of melancholy and valetudinarian habits, believed himself
bewitched to death by six witches, one man and five women, who were
leagued for the purpose of tormenting a clay image in his likeness.
Five of the accused were executed, and the sixth only escaped on
account of extreme youth.
Isabel Gowdie, the famous Scotch witch before referred to, in her
confessions gives a very particular account of the mode in which these
images were manufactured. It is curious, and worth quoting:--
_Johne Taylor_ and _Janet Breadhead_, his wyff, in
Bellnakeith, _Bessie Wilsone_, in Aulderne, and _Margret
Wilsone_, spows to _Donald Callam_ in Aulderne, and I, maid
an pictur of clay, to distroy _the Laird of Parkis_
meall[62] children. _Johne Taylor_ browght hom the clay, in
his plaid newk;[63] his wyff brak it verie small, lyk
meall,[64] and sifted it with a siew,[65] and powred in
water among it, in _the Divellis_ nam, and vrought it werie
sore, lyk rye-bowt;[66] and maid of it a pictur of _the
Lairdis_ sones. It haid all the pairtis and merkis of a
child, such as heid, eyes, nose, handis, foot, mowth, and
little lippes. It wanted no mark of a child; and the handis
of it folded down by its sydes. It was lyk a pow,[67] or a
flain gryce.[68] We laid the face of it to the fyre, till it
strakned;[69] and a cleir fyre round abowt it, till it ves
read lyk a cole.[70] After that, we wold rest it now and
then; each other day[71] ther wold be an piece of it weill
rosten. _The Laird of Parkis_ heall maill children by it ar
to suffer, if it be not gotten and brokin, als weill as thes
that ar borne and dead alreadie. It ves still putt in and
taken out of the fyre, in _the Divellis_ name. It wes hung
wp wpon an knag. It is yet in _Johne Taylor's_ hows, and it
hes a cradle of clay abowt it. Onlie _Johne Taylor_ and his
wyff, _Janet Breadhead_, _Bessie_ and _Margret Wilsones_ in
Aulderne, and _Margret Brodie_, thair, and I, were onlie at
the making of it. All the multitud of our number of WITCHES,
of all the COEVENS, kent[72] all of it, at owr nixt meitting
after it was maid.
The wordis which we spak, quhan we maid the pictur, for
distroyeing of _the Laird of Parkis_ meall-children, wer
thus:
'IN THE DIVELLIS nam, we powr in this water
among this mowld (meall,)[73]
For lang duyning and ill heall;
We putt it into the fyre,
That it mey be brunt both stik and stowre.
It salbe brunt, with owr will,
As any stikle[74] wpon a kill.'
THE DIVELL taught ws the wordis; and quhan ve haid learned
them, we all fell downe wpon owr bare kneyis, and owr hair
abowt owr eyes, and owr handis lifted wp, looking steadfast
wpon THE DIVELL, still saying the wordis thryse ower, till
it wes maid. And then, in THE DIVELLIS nam, we did put it
in, in the midst of the fyre. Efter it had skrukned[75] a
little before the fyre, and quhan it ves read lyk a coale,
we took it owt in THE DIVELLIS nam. Till it be broken, it
will be the deathe of all the meall children that _the Laird
of Park_ will ewer get. Cast it ower an Kirk, it will not
brak quhill[76] it be broken with an aix, or som such lyk
thing, be a man's handis. If it be not broken, it will last
an hundreth yeir. It hes ane cradle about it of clay, to
preserue it from skaith;[77] and it wes rosten each vther
day, at the fyr; som tymes on pairt of it, som tymes an
vther pairt of it; it vold be a litle wat with water, and
then rosten. The bairn vold be brunt and rosten, ewin as it
ves by ws.--_Pitcairne's Criminal Trials_, Vol. iii. pp. 605
and 612.
[Footnote 62: Male.]
[Footnote 63: In the nook, or corner, of his plaid.]
[Footnote 64: Pounded, or powdered it, like meal.]
[Footnote 65: To make the plaster fine, and free from earthy
particles.]
[Footnote 66: Probably a sort of stir-about, or hasty-pudding, made of
rye-flour.]
[Footnote 67: In another deposition it is thus expressed, 'lyk a _pow
or feadge_.' A _feadge_ was a sort of _scone_, or roll, of a pretty
large size. Perhaps this term signifies, as large as the quantity of
dough or paste necessary for making this kind of bread.]
[Footnote 68: A flayed sucking pig, after being scalded and scraped.]
[Footnote 69: Shrivelled with the heat.]
[Footnote 70: Red like a coal.]
[Footnote 71: Each alternate day.]
[Footnote 72: Knew.]
[Footnote 73: It is written _meall_ in the other Confession; and the
metre (such as it is) requires this liberty. _Mowld_ signifies 'earth'
or 'dust.']
[Footnote 74: Stubble.]
[Footnote 75: Parched; shrivelled.]
[Footnote 76: Until.]
[Footnote 77: Harm; injury.]
B 4 _b_ 1. "_And sayd that she should haue gould, siluer, and worldly
wealth at her will._"] These familiars, to use Warburton's expression,
always promised with the lavishness of a young courtier, and performed
with the indifference of an old one. Nothing seems to puzzle Dr. Dee
more, in the long and confidential intercourse he carried on so many
years with his spirits, than to account for the great scarcity of
specie they seemed to be afflicted with, and the unsatisfactory and
unfurnished state of their exchequer. Bills, to be sure, they gave at
long dates; but these constantly required renewing, and were never
honoured at last. Any application for present relief, in good current
coin of the realm, was invariably followed by what Meric Casaubon very
significantly calls "sermonlike stuff." The learned professor in
witchery, John Stearne, seems to fix six shillings as the maximum of
money payment at one time which in all his experience he had detected
between witches and their familiars. He was examining Joan Ruccalver,
of Powstead, in Suffolk, who had been promised by her spirit that she
should never want meat, drink, clothes, or money. "Then I asked her
whether they brought her any money or no; and she said sometimes four
shillings at a time, and sometimes six shillings at a time; but that
is but seldom, _for I never knew any that had any money before_,
except of Clarke's wife, of Manningtree, who confessed the same, and
showed some, which, she said, her impe brought her, which was proper
money." Confirmation, page 27. Judging from the anxiety which this
worthy displays to be "satisfied and paid with reason" for his
itinerant labours, such a scanty and penurious supply would soon have
disgusted him, if he had been witch, instead of witch-finder.
B 4 _b_ 2. "_She had bewitched to death Richard Ashton, sonne of
Richard Ashton, of Downeham, Esquire._"] Richard Assheton, (as the
name is more properly spelled,) thus done to death by witchcraft, was
the son of Richard Assheton, of Downham, an old manor house, the scite
of which is now supplied by a modern structure, which Dr. Whitaker
thinks, in point of situation, has no equal in the parish of Whalley.
Richard, the son, married Isabel, daughter and heiress of Mr. Hancock,
of Pendleton Hall, and died without offspring. The family estate
accordingly descended to the younger brother, Nicholas Assheton, whose
diary for part of the year 1617 and part of the year following is
given, page 303 of Whitaker's _History of Whalley_, edition 1818, and
is a most valuable record of the habits, pursuits, and course of life
of a Lancashire country gentleman of that period. It well deserves
detaching in a separate publication, and illustrating with a more
expanded commentary.
C _b_. "_Piggin full._"] Piggin is properly a sort of bowl, or pail,
with one of the staves much longer than the rest, made for a handle,
to lade water by, and used especially in brewhouses to measure out the
liquor with.
C 2 _a_. "_Nicholas Banister._"] Dr. Whitaker, in the pedigree of the
Banisters, of Altham, (genealogy was, it is well known, one of the
vulnerable parts of this Achilles of topography,) erroneously states
this Nicholas Banister to have been buried at Altham, December 7,
1611. It appears, however, from a deed, an inspection of which I owe
to the kindness of my friend, Dr. Fleming, that his will was dated the
15th August, 1612. In all probability he did not die for some years
after that date. He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of
Richard Elston, of Brockall, Esq.; and, second, Catherine, daughter of
Edmund Ashton, of Chaderton, Esq. The manor house of Altham, for more
than five centuries the residence of this ancient family, stands, to
use Dr. Whitaker's words, upon a gentle elevation on the western side
of the river Calder, commanding a low and fertile domain. It has been
surrounded, according to the prudence or jealousy of the feudal times,
with a very deep quadrangular moat, which must have included all the
apparatus of the farm.
C 3 _a_. "_At Malking Tower, in the forrest of Pendle._"] Malkin Tower
was the habitation of Mother Demdike, the situation of which is
preserved, for the structure no longer exists, by local tradition.
Malkin is the Scotch or north country word for hare, as this animal
was one into which witches were supposed to be fond of transforming
themselves. Malkin Tower is, in fact, the Witches' Tower. The term is
used in the following passage in Morison's _Poems_, p. 7, which bears
upon the above explanation:--
"Or tell the pranks o' winter's nights,
How Satan blazes uncouth lights;
Or how he does a core convene
Upon a witch-frequented green,
Wi' spells and cauntrips hellish rantin',
Like mawkins thro' the fields they're janting."
C 4 _b_. "_We want old Demdike, who dyed in the castle before she came
to her tryall._"] Worn out most probably with her imprisonment, she
having been committed in April, and the cruelties she had undergone,
both before and after her commitment. Master Nowell and Master Potts
both _wanted_ her, we may readily conceive, to fill up the miserable
pageant; but she was gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and
the weary are at rest. With the exception of Alice Nutter, in whom
interest is excited from very different grounds, Mother Demdike
attracts attention in a higher degree than any other of these Pendle
witches. She was, beyond dispute, the Erictho of Pendle. Mother
Chattox was but second in rank. There is something fearfully intense
in the expression of the former,--blind, on the last verge of the
extreme limit of human existence, and mother of a line of
witches,--"that she would pray for the said Baldwin, both still and
loud." She is introduced in Shadwell's play, the _Lancashire Witches_,
1682, as a _persona dramatis_, along with Mother Dickinson and Mother
Hargrave, two of the witches convicted in 1633, but without any regard
to the characteristic circumstances under which she appears in the
present narrative. The following invocation, which is put into her
mouth, is rather a favourable specimen of that play, certainly not one
of the worst of Shadwell's, in which there are many vigorous strokes,
with an alloy of coarseness not unusual in his works, and some
powerful conceptions of character:
Come, sisters, come, why do you stay?
Our business will not brook delay;
The owl is flown from the hollow oak,
From lakes and bogs the toads do croak;
The foxes bark, the screech-owl screams,
Wolves howl, bats fly, and the faint beams
Of glow-worms light grows bright a-pace;
The stars are fled, the moon hides her face.
The spindle now is turning round,
Mandrakes are groaning under ground:
I'th' hole i'th' ditch (our nails have made)
Now all our images are laid,
Of wax and wooll, which we must prick,
With needles urging to the quick.
Into the hole I'le poure a flood
Of black lambs bloud, to make all good.
The lamb with nails and teeth wee'l tear.
Come, where's the sacrifice? appear.
* * * * *
Oyntment for flying here I have,
Of childrens fat, stoln from the grave:
The juice of smallage, and night-shade,
Of poplar leaves, and aconite, made
With these.
The aromatic reed I boyl,
With water-parsnip and cinquefoil;
With store of soot, and add to that
The reeking blood of many a bat.
_Lancashire Witches_, pp. 10, 41.
One of the peculiarities of Shadwell's play is the introduction of the
Lancashire dialect, which he makes his clown Clod speak. The subjoined
extract may perhaps amuse my readers. Collier would have enjoyed it:
_Clod._ An yeow been a mon Ay'st talk wy ye a bit, yeow mun
tack a care o your sells, the plecs haunted with Buggarts,
and Witches, one of 'em took my Condle and Lanthorn out of
my hont, and flew along wy it; and another Set me o top o'th
tree, where I feel dawn now, Ay ha well neegh brocken my
theegh.
_Doubt._ The fellows mad, I neither understand his words,
nor his Sence, prethee how far is it to Whalley?
_Clod._ Why yeow are quite besaid th' road mon, yeow
Shoulden a gon dawn th' bonk by _Thomas_ o _Georges_, and
then ee'n at yate, and turn'd dawn th' Lone, and left the
Steepo o'th reeght hont.
_Bell._ Prithee don't tell us what we should have done, but
how far is it to Whalley?
_Clod._ Why marry four mail and a bit.
_Doubt._ Wee'l give thee an Angel and show us the way
thither.
_Clod._ Marry thats Whaint. I canno see my hont, haw con Ay
show yeow to Whalley to neeght.
_Bell._ Canst thou show us to any house where we may have
Shelter and Lodging to night? we are Gentlemen and
strangers, and will pay you well for't.
_Clod._ Ay byr Lady con I, th' best ludging and diet too in
aw Lancashire. Yonder at th' hough where yeow seen th'
leeghts there.
_Doubt._ Whose house is that?
_Clod._ Why what a pox, where han yeow lived? why yeow are
Strongers indeed! why, 'tis Sir _Yedard Harfourts_, he Keeps
oppen hawse to all Gentry, yeou'st be welcome to him by day
and by neeght he's Lord of aw here abauts.
_Bell._ My Mistresses Father, Luck if it be thy will, have
at my _Isabella_, Canst thou guide us thither?
_Clod._ Ay, Ay, there's a pawer of Company there naw, Sir
_Jeffery Shaklehead_, and the Knight his Son, and Doughter.
_Doubt._ Lucky above my wishes, O my dear _Theodosia_, how
my heart leaps at her! prethee guide us thither, wee'l pay
thee well.
_Clod._ Come on, I am e'n breed aut o my sences, I was ne'er
so freeghtened sin I was born, give me your
hont.--_Lancashire Witches_, p. 14.
D _b_. "_Ann Whittle, alias Chattox._"] Chattox, from her continually
chattering.
D 2 _a_ 1. "_Her lippes euer chattering and walking._"] Walking,
_i.e._, working. Old Chattox might have sat to Archbishop Harsnet for
her portrait. What can exceed the force and graphic truth, the
searching wit and sarcasm, of the picture he sketches in 1605?
Out of these is shaped vs the true _Idoea_ of a Witch, an
old weather-beaten Croane, hauing her chinne, & her knees
meeting for age, walking like a bow leaning on a shaft,
hollow eyed, vntoothed, furrowed on her face, hauing her
lips trembling with the palsie, going mumbling in the
streetes, one that hath forgott[=e] her _pater noster_, and
hath yet a shrewd tongue in her head, to call a drab, a
drab. If shee haue learned of an olde wife in a chimnies
end: _Pax, max, fax_, for a spel: or can say Sir _Iohn of
Grantams_ curse, for the Millers Eeles, that were stolne:
All you that haue stolne the Millers Eeles, _Laudate dominum
de coelis_: And all they that haue consented thereto,
_benedicamus domino_: Why then ho, beware, looke about you
my neighbours; if any of you haue a sheepe sicke of the
giddies, or an hogge of the mumps, or an horse of the
staggers, or a knauish boy of the schoole, or an idle girle
of the wheele, or a young drab of the sullens, and hath not
fat enough for her porredge, nor her father, and mother,
butter enough for their bread; and she haue a little helpe
of the _Mother_, _Epilepsie_, or _Cramp_, to teach her role
her eyes, wrie her mouth, gnash her teeth, startle with her
body, holde her armes and hands stiffe, make anticke faces,
grine, mow, and mop like an Ape, tumble like a Hedge-hogge,
and can mutter out two or three words of gibridg, as _obus,
bobus_: and then with-all old mother _Nobs_ hath called her
by chaunce, idle young huswife, or bid the deuill scratch
her, then no doubt but mother _Nobs_ is the Witch: the young
girle is Owle-blasted, and possessed: and it goes hard but
ye shall haue some idle adle, giddie, lymphaticall,
illuminate dotrel, who being out of credite, learning,
sobriety, honesty, and wit, will take this holy aduantage,
to raise the ruines of his desperate decayed name, and for
his better glory wil be-pray the iugling drab, and cast out
_Mopp_ the deuil.
They that haue their braines baited, and their fancies
distempered with the imaginations, and apprehensions of
Witches, Coniurers, and Fayries, and all that Lymphatical
_Chimæra_: I finde to be marshalled in one of these fiue
rankes, children, fooles, women, cowards, sick, or blacke,
melancholicke, discomposed wits. The Scythians being a
warlike Nation (as _Plutarch_ reports) neuer saw any
visions.--_Harsnet's Declaration_, p. 136.
D 2 _a_ 2. "_From these two sprung all the rest in order._"] The
descent from these two rival witch stocks, between which a deadly feud
and animosity prevailed, which led to the destruction of both
families, is shewn as follows:
Elizabeth Sothernes,
alias Old Demdike,
died in prison in 1612,
about 80 years old.
1 | 2
------------------------------
| |
Christopher = Eliz. Elizabeth, executed = John Device, or
Howgate. Both of at Lancaster, | Davies, supposed
them were reputed 1612. | to have been bewitched
to be at the witches | to death,
meeting on Good | by Widow Chattox,
Friday, 1612, but | because he had not
were not indicted. | paid her his yearly
Perhaps they were | aghen dole of meal.
the "one Holgate |
and his wife" mentioned |
amongst the |
witches in 1633. |
1 2 | 3
---------------------------------------------------
| | |
James Device, or Alizon, executed Jennet, 9 years old
Davies, executed at at Lancaster in 1612. in 1612, and an evidence
Lancaster in 1612. in the present
trial. Condemned
herself, along with
16 other persons,
for witchcraft, in
1633, when she appears
to have been
unmarried, but not
executed.
Anne Whittle, alias
Chattox, executed
at Lancaster, 1612,
about 80 years old.
|
Anne, executed = Thomas Redferne.
in 1612. |
|
Mary.
D 3 _a_. "_Commaunded this examinate to call him by the name of
Fancie._"] The fittest name for a familiar she could possibly have
chosen. Sir Walter Scott (_Letters on Demonology_, p. 242)
unaccountably speaks of Fancie as a female devil. Master Potts would
have told him, (see M 2 _b_,) "that Fancie had a very good face, and
was a very proper man."
D 3 _b_ 1. "_The wife of Richard Baldwin, of Pendle._"] Richard
Baldwin was the miller who accosted Old Dembdike so unceremoniously.
D 3 _b_ 2. "_Robert Nutter._"] The family of the Nutters, of Pendle,
bore a great share in the proceedings referred to in this trial. It
seems to have been a family of note amongst the inferior gentry or
yeomanry of the forest. A Nutter held courts for many years about this
period, as deputy steward at Clitheroe. (See Whitaker's _Whalley_, p.
307.) Three of the name are stated in the evidence to have been killed
by witchcraft, Christopher Nutter, Robert Nutter, and Anne, the
daughter of Anthony Nutter; and one of the unfortunate persons
convicted is Alice Nutter. The branch to which Robert belonged is
shewn in the following table:
Robert Nutter, the elder, = Elizabeth, who is reputed
of Pendle, called old | to have employed Anne
Robert Nutter. | Chattox, Loomeshaw's
| wife, and Jane Boothman
| to bewitch to death young
| Robert Nutter, that other
| relations might inherit.
|
Christopher, reputed
to have died of witchcraft
about 18 years before.
|
1 | 2 3
------------------------------------------------------
| | |
Robert, of Greenhead, = Mary John, of Higham Margaret = Crooke
in Pendle, a retainer Booth. |
of Sir Richard | |
Shuttleworth, ---------------------------
reputed to have been gave evidence at the trial.
bewitched to death
18 or 19 years
before the trial
took place.
D 4 _a_. "_One Mr. Baldwyn (the late Schoole-maister at Coulne) did by
his learning, stay the sayd Loomeshaws wife, and therefore had a Capon
from Redfearne._"] I regret that I can give no account of this learned
Theban, who appears to have stayed the plague, and who taught at the
school at which Archbishop Tillotson was afterwards educated. He well
deserved his capon. Had he continued at Colne up to the time of this
trial, he might perhaps, on the same easy terms, have kept the powers
of darkness in check, and prevented some imputed crimes which cost ten
unfortunates their lives.
E _b_ 1. "_Iames Robinson._"] Baines, in his _History of Lancashire_,
vol. i. p. 605, speaks of Edmund Robinson, the father of the boy on
whose evidence the witches were convicted in 1633, as if he had been a
witness at the present trial; which is probably a mistake for this
James Robinson, as no Edmund Robinson appears amongst the witnessses
whose depositions are given.
E _b_ 2. "_Anne Whittle alias Chattox was hired by this examinates
wife to card wooll._"] She seems to have been by occupation a carder
of wool, and to have filled up the intervals, when she had no
employment, by mendicancy.
E 2 _a_. "_Sir Richard Shuttleworth._"} Of the family of the
Shuttleworths of Gawthorp, "where they resided" Whitaker observes, "in
the condition of inferior gentry till the lucrative profession of the
law raised them, in the reign of Elizabeth, to the rank of knighthood
and an estate proportioned to its demands." Sir Richard was
Sergeant-at-law, and Chief Justice of Chester, 31st Elizabeth, and
died without issue about 1600.
E 2 _b_. "_A Charme._"] Evidently in so corrupted a state as to bid
defiance to any attempt at elucidation.
E 3 _a_ 1. "_Perceiuing Anthonie Nutter of Pendle to fauour Elizabeth
Sothernes alias Dembdike._"] The Sothernes and Davies's and the
Whittles and Redfernes were the Montagus and Capulets of Pendle. The
poor cottager whose drink was forsepoken or bewitched, or whose cow
went mad, and who in his attempt to propitiate one of the rival powers
offended the other, would naturally exclaim from the innermost
recesses of his heart, "A plague on both your houses."
E 3 _a_ 2. "_Gaping as though he would haue wearied this Examinate._"]
Wearied for worried.
E 3 _b_. "_Examination of Iames Device._"] This is a very curious
examination. The production of the four teeth and figure of clay dug
up at the west-end of Malkin Tower would look like a "damning witness"
to the two horror-struck justices and the assembled concourse at Read,
who did not perhaps consider how easily such evidences may be
furnished, and how readily they who hide may find. The incident
deposed to at the burial at the New Church in Pendle is a wild and
striking one.
E 4 _a_. "_About eleuen yeares agoe, this Examinate and her mother had
their firehouse broken._"] The inference intended is, that Whittle's
family committed the robbery from Old Demdike's house. This was, in
all probability, the origin of their feuds. The abstraction of the
coif and band, tempting articles to the young daughter of Old Chattox,
not destitute, if we may judge from one occurrence deposed to, of
personal attractions, may be said to have convulsed Lancashire from
the Leven to the Mersey,--to have caused a sensation, the shock of
which, after more than two centuries, has scarcely yet subsided, and
to have actually given a new name to the fair sex.
E 4 _b_ 1. "_One Aghen-dole of meale._"] This Aghen-dole, a word
still, I believe, in use for a particular measure of any article, was,
I presume, a kind of witches' black mail. My friend, the Rev. Canon
Parkinson, informs me that Aghen-dole, sometimes pronounced
Acken-dole, signifies an half-measure of anything, from
half-hand-dole. Mr. Halliwell has omitted it in his Glossary, now in
progress.
E 4 _b_ 2. "_Iohn Moore of Higham, Gentleman._"] Sir Jonas Moore, of
whom an account is contained in Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 479, and whom
he characterizes as a sanguine projector, was born in Pendle Forest,
and was probably of this family.
E 4 _b_ 3. "_She would meet with the said Iohn Moore, or his._"] i.e.
She would be equal with him.
F _a_ 1. "_Charne._"] i.e. Charm.
F _a_ 2. "_With weeping teares she humbly acknowledged them to be
true._"] She seems to have confessed in the hope of saving her
daughter, Anne Redfern. But from such a judge as Sir Edward Bromley,
mercy was as little to be expected as common sense from his "faithful
chronicler," Thomas Potts.
F 2 _b_. "_Sparing no man with fearefull execrable curses and
banning._"] Nothing seems to shock the nerves of these witch
historiographers so much as the utter want of decorum and propriety
exhibited by these unhappy creatures in giving vent to these indignant
outbreaks, which a sense of the wicked injustice of their fate, and
seeing their own offspring brought up in evidence against them,
through the most detestable acts, and by the basest subornation, would
naturally extort from minds even of iron mould. If ever Lear's or
Timon's power of malediction could be justifiably called into
exercise, it would be against such a tribunal and such witnesses as
they had generally to encounter.
F 4 _a_. "_That at the third time her Spirit._"] Something seems to be
wanting here, as she does not state what occurred at the two previous
interviews. The learned judge may have exercised a sound discretion in
this omission, as the particulars might be of a nature unfit for
publication. The present tract is, undoubtedly, remarkably free from
those disgusting details of which similar reports are generally full
to overflowing.
F 4 _b_. "_The said Iennet Deuice, being a yong Maide, about the age
of nine yeares._"] This child must have been admirably trained, (some
Master Thomson might have been near at hand to instruct her,) or must
have had great natural capacity for deception. She made an excellent
witness on this occasion. What became of her after the wholesale
extinction of her family, to which she was so mainly instrumental, is
not now known. In all likelihood she dragged on a miserable existence,
a forlorn outcast, pointed at by the hand of scorn, or avoided with
looks of horror in the wilds of Pendle. As if some retributive
punishment awaited her, she is reported to have been the Jennet Davies
who was condemned in 1633, on the evidence of Edmund Robinson the
younger, with Mother Dickenson and others, but not executed. Her
confession, if she made one at the second trial, might not have been
unsimilar to that of Alexander Sussums, of Melford in Suffolk, who,
Hearne tells us, confessed "that he had things which did draw those
marks I found upon him, but said he could not help it, for that all
his kinred were naught. Then I asked him how it was possible they
could suck without his consent. He said he did consent to that. Then I
asked him again why he should do it when as God was so merciful
towards him, as I then told him of, being a man whom I had been
formerly acquainted withal, as having lived in town. He answered
again, he could not help it, for that all his generation was naught;
and so told me _his mother and aunt were hanged, his grandmother burnt
for witchcraft, and ten others of them questioned and hanged_. This
man is yet living, notwithstanding he confessed the sucking of such
things above sixteen years together."--_Confirmation_, p. 36.
G 3 _a_. "_Anne Crouckshey._"] Anne Cronkshaw.
G 3 _b_ 1. "_Vpon Good Friday last there was about twentie persons._"]
This meeting, if not a witches' Sabbath, was a close approximation to
one. On the subject of the Sabbath, or periodical meeting of witches,
De Lancre is the leading authority. He who is curious cannot do better
than consult this great hierophant, (his work is entitled Tableau de
l'Inconstance des mauvais Anges et Demons. Paris, 1613, 4to.) whose
knowledge and experience well qualified him to have been constituted
the Itinerant Master of Ceremonies, an officer who, he assures us,
was never wanting on such occasions. In that singular book, _The
History of Monsieur Oufle_, p. 288, (English Translation, 1711, 8vo.)
are collected from various sources all the ceremonies and
circumstances attending the holding the Sabbath. It appears that
non-attendance invariably incurred a penalty, which is computed upon
the average at the eighth part of a crown, or in French currency at
ten sous--that, though the contrary has been maintained by many grave
authors, egress and ingress by the chimney (De Lancre had depositions
without number, he tells us, _vide_ p. 114, on this important head,)
was not a matter of solemn obligation, but was an open question--that
no grass ever grows upon the place where the Sabbath is kept; which is
accounted for by the circumstance of its being trodden by so many of
those whose feet are constitutionally hot, and therefore being burnt
up and consequently very barren--that two devils of note preside on
the occasion, the great negro, who is called Master Leonard, and a
little devil, whom Master Leonard sometimes substitutes in his place
as temporary vice-president; his name is Master John Mullin. (De
Lancre, p. 126.) With regard to a very important point, the bill of
fare, great difference of opinion exists: some maintaining that every
delicacy of the season, to use the newspaper phrase, is provided;
others stoutly asserting that nothing is served up but toads, the
flesh of hanged criminals, dead carcases fresh buried taken out of
Churchyards, flesh of unbaptized infants, or beasts which died of
themselves--that they never eat with salt, and that their bread is of
black millet. (De Lancre, pp. 104, 105.) In this diversity of opinion
I can only suggest, that difference of climate, habit, and fashion,
might possibly have its weight, and render a very different larder
necessary for the witches of Pendle and those of Gascony or Lorrain.
The fare of the former on this occasion appears to have been of a very
substantial and satisfactory kind, "beef, bacon, and roasted mutton:"
the old saying so often quoted by the discontented masters of
households applying emphatically in this case:--
"God sends us good meat, but the devil sends cooks."