increase of witches and loup-garous, that a council was held to devise
some measures to stay the evil. A decree was passed, that all witches,
and consulters with witches, should be punished with death; and not
only those, but fortune-tellers and conjurors of every kind. The
Parliament of Rouen took up the same question in the following year,
and decreed that the possession of a grimoire, or book of spells, was
sufficient evidence of witchcraft; and that all persons on whom such
books were found should be burned alive. Three councils were held in
different parts of France in the year 1583, all in relation to the same
subject. The Parliament of Bourdeaux issued strict injunctions to all
curates and clergy whatever, to use redoubled efforts to root out the
crime of witchcraft. The Parliament of Tours was equally peremptory,
and feared the judgments of an offended God, if all these dealers with
the devil were not swept from the face of the land. The Parliament of
Rheims was particularly severe against the noueurs d'aiguillette, or
"tyers of the knot;" people of both sexes, who took pleasure in
preventing the consummation of marriage, that they might counteract the
command of God to our first parents, to increase and multiply. This
Parliament held it to be sinful to wear amulets to preserve from
witchcraft; and that this practice might not be continued within its
jurisdiction, drew up a form of exorcism, which would more effectually
defeat the agents of the devil, and put them to flight.
A case of witchcraft, which created a great sensation in its day,
occurred in 1588, at a village in the mountains of Auvergne, about two
leagues from Apchon. A gentleman of that place being at his window,
there passed a friend of his who had been out hunting, and who was then
returning to his own house. The gentleman asked his friend what sport
he had had; upon which the latter informed him that he had been
attacked in the plain by a large and savage wolf, which he had shot at,
without wounding; and that he had then drawn out his hunting-knife and
cut off the animal's fore-paw, as it sprang upon his neck to devour
him. The huntsman, upon this, put his hand into his bag to pull out the
paw, but was shocked to find that it was a woman's hand, with a
wedding-ring on the finger. The gentleman immediately recognized his
wife's ring, "which," says the indictment against her, "made him begin
to suspect some evil of her." He immediately went in search of her, and
found her sitting by the fire in the kitchen, with her arm hidden
underneath her apron. He tore off her apron with great vehemence, and
found that she had no hand, and that the stump was even then bleeding.
She was given into custody, and burned at Riom in presence of some
thousands of spectators. [Tablier. See also Boguet, "Discours sur les
Sorciers;" and M. Jules Garinet, "Histoire de la Magie," page 150.]
In the midst of these executions, rare were the gleams of mercy; few
instances are upon record of any acquittal taking place when the charge
was witchcraft. The discharge of fourteen persons by the Parliament of
Paris, in the year 1589, is almost a solitary example of a return to
reason. Fourteen persons, condemned to death for witchcraft, appealed
against the judgment to the Parliament of Paris, which for political
reasons had been exiled to Tours. The Parliament named four
commissioners, Pierre Pigray, the King's surgeon, and Messieurs Leroi,
Renard, and Falaiseau, the King's physicians, to visit and examine
these witches, and see whether they had the mark of the devil upon
them. Pigray, who relates the circumstance in his work on Surgery, book
vii, chapter the tenth, says the visit was made in presence of two
counsellors of the court. The witches were all stripped naked, and the
physicians examined their bodies very diligently, pricking them in all
the marks they could find, to see whether they were insensible to pain,
which was always considered a certain proof of guilt. They were,
however, very sensible of the pricking, and some of them called out
very lustily when the pins were driven into them. "We found them,"
continues Pierre Pigray, "to be very poor, stupid people, and some of
them insane; many of them were quite indifferent about life, and one or
two of them desired death as a relief for their sufferings. Our opinion
was, that they stood more in need of medicine than of punishment, and
so we reported to the Parliament. Their case was, thereupon, taken into
further consideration, and the Parliament, after mature counsel amongst
all the members, ordered the poor creatures to be sent to their homes,
without inflicting any punishment upon them."
Such was the dreadful state of Italy, Germany, and France, during the
sixteenth century, which was far from being the worst crisis of the
popular madness with regard to witchcraft. Let us see what was the
state of England during the same period. The Reformation, which in its
progress had rooted out so many errors, stopped short at this, the
greatest error of all. Luther and Calvin were as firm believers in
witchcraft as Pope Innocent himself, and their followers showed
themselves more zealous persecutors than the Romanists. Dr. Hutchinson,
in his work on Witchcraft, asserts that the mania manifested itself
later in England, and raged with less virulence than on the Continent.
The first assertion only is true; but though the persecution began
later both in England and Scotland, its progress was as fearful as
elsewhere.
It was not until more than fifty years after the issuing of the Bull of
Innocent VIII. that the Legislature of England thought fit to make any
more severe enactments against sorcery than those already in operation.
The statute of 1541 was the first that specified the particular crime
of witchcraft. At a much earlier period, many persons had suffered
death for sorcery in addition to other offences; but no executions took
place for attending the witches' sabbath, raising tempests, afflicting
cattle with barrenness, and all the fantastic trumpery of the
Continent. Two statutes were passed in 1551; the first, relating to
false prophecies, caused mainly, no doubt, by the impositions of
Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, in 1534, and the second
against conjuration, witchcraft, and sorcery. But even this enactment
did not consider witchcraft as penal in itself, and only condemned to
death those who by means of spells, incantations, or contracts with the
devil, attempted the lives of their neighbours. The statute of
Elizabeth, in 1562, at last recognized witchcraft as a crime of the
highest magnitude, whether exerted or not to the injury of the lives,
limbs, and possessions of the community. From that date, the
persecution may be fairly said to have commenced in England. It reached
its climax in the early part of the seventeenth century, which was the
hottest period of the mania all over Europe.
A few cases of witch persecution in the sixteenth century will enable
the reader to form a more accurate idea of the progress of this great
error than if he plunged at once into that busy period of its history
when Matthew Hopkins and his coadjutors exercised their infernal
calling. Several instances occur in England during the latter years of
the reign of Elizabeth. At this time the public mind had become pretty
familiar with the details of the crime. Bishop Jewell, in his sermons
before Her Majesty, used constantly to conclude them by a fervent
prayer that she might be preserved from witches. Upon one occasion, in
1598, his words were, "It may please your Grace to understand that
witches and sorcerers, within these last four years, are marvellously
increased within this 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 may never practise further than upon the subject!"
By degrees, an epidemic terror of witchcraft spread into the villages.
In proportion as the doctrines of the Puritans took root this dread
increased, and, of course, brought persecution in its train. The Church
of England has claimed, and is entitled to the merit, of having been
less influenced in these matters than any other sect of Christians; but
still they were tainted with the superstition of the age. One of the
most flagrant instances of cruelty and delusion upon record was
consummated under the authority of the Church, and commemorated till a
very late period by an annual lecture at the University of Cambridge.
This is the celebrated case of the Witches of Warbois, who were
executed about thirty-two years after the passing of the statute of
Elizabeth. Although in the interval but few trials are recorded, there
is, unfortunately, but too much evidence to show the extreme length to
which the popular prejudice was carried. Many women lost their lives in
every part of England without being brought to trial at all, from the
injuries received at the hands of the people. The number of these can
never be ascertained.
The case of the Witches of Warbois merits to be detailed at length, not
only from the importance attached to it for so many years by the
learned of the University, but from the singular absurdity of the
evidence upon which men, sensible in all other respects, could condemn
their fellow-creatures to the scaffold.
The principal actors in this strange drama were the families of Sir
Samuel Cromwell and a Mr. Throgmorton, both gentlemen of landed
property near Warbois, in the county of Huntingdon. Mr. Throgmorton had
several daughters, the eldest of whom, Mistress Joan, was an
imaginative and melancholy girl, whose head was filled with stories of
ghosts and witches. Upon one occasion she chanced to pass the cottage
of one Mrs. or, as she was called, Mother Samuel, a very aged, a very
poor, and a very ugly woman. Mother Samuel was sitting at her door
knitting, with a black cap upon her head, when this silly young lady
passed, and taking her eyes from her work she looked steadfastly at
her. Mistress Joan immediately fancied that she felt sudden pains in
all her limbs, and from that day forth, never ceased to tell her
sisters, and everybody about her, that Mother Samuel had bewitched her.
The other children took up the cry, and actually frightened themselves
into fits whenever they passed within sight of this terrible old woman.
Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton, not a whir wiser than their children,
believed all the absurd tales they had been told; and Lady Cromwell, a
gossip of Mrs. Throgmorton, made herself very active in the business,
and determined to bring the witch to the ordeal. The sapient Sir Samuel
joined in the scheme; and the children thus encouraged gave loose reins
to their imaginations, which seem to have been of the liveliest. They
soon invented a whole host of evil spirits, and names for them besides,
which, they said, were sent by Mother Samuel to torment them
continually. Seven spirits especially, they said, were raised from hell
by this wicked woman to throw them into fits; and as the children were
actually subject to fits, their mother and her commeres gave the more
credit to the story. The names of these spirits were, "First Smack,"
"Second Smack," "Third Smack," "Blue," "Catch," "Hardname," and "Pluck."
Throgmorton, the father, was so pestered by these idle fancies, and yet
so well inclined to believe them, that he marched valiantly forth to
the hut where Mother Samuel resided with her husband and daughter, and
dragged her forcibly into his own grounds. Lady Cromwell, Mrs.
Throgmorton, and the girls were in waiting, armed with long pins to
prick the witch, and see if they could draw blood from her. Lady
Cromwell, who seems to have been the most violent of the party, tore
the old woman's cap off her head, and plucking out a handful of her
grey hair, gave it to Mrs. Throgmorton to burn, as a charm which would
preserve them all from her future machinations. It was no wonder that
the poor creature, subjected to this rough usage, should give vent to
an involuntary curse upon her tormentors. She did so, and her curse was
never forgotten. Her hair, however, was supposed to be a grand
specific, and she was allowed to depart, half dead with terror and ill
usage. For more than a year, the families of Cromwell and Throgmorton
continued to persecute her, and to assert that her imps afflicted them
with pains and fits, turned the milk sour in their pans, and prevented
their cows and ewes from bearing. In the midst of these fooleries, Lady
Cromwell was taken ill and died. It was then remembered that her death
had taken place exactly a year and a quarter since she was cursed by
Mother Samuel, and that on several occasions she had dreamed of the
witch and a black cat, the latter being of course the arch-enemy of
mankind himself.
Sir Samuel Cromwell now conceived himself bound to take more energetic
measures against the sorceress, since he had lost his wife by her
means. The year and a quarter and the black cat were proofs positive.
All the neighbours had taken up the cry of witchcraft against Mother
Samuel; and her personal appearance, unfortunately for her, the very
ideal of what a witch ought to be, increased the popular suspicion. It
would appear that at last the poor woman believed, even to her own
disadvantage, that she was what everybody represented her to be. Being
forcibly brought into Mr. Throgmorton's house, when his daughter Joan
was in one of her customary fits, she was commanded by him and Sir
Samuel Cromwell to expel the devil from the young lady. She was told
to repeat her exorcism, and to add, "as I am a witch, and the causer of
Lady Cromwell's death, I charge thee, fiend, to come out of her!" She
did as was required of her, and moreover confessed that her husband and
daughter were leagued with her in witchcraft, and had, like her, sold
their souls to the devil. The whole family were immediately arrested,
and sent to Huntingdon to prison.
The trial was instituted shortly afterwards before Mr. Justice Fenner,
when all the crazy girls of Mr. Throgmorton's family gave evidence
against Mother Samuel and her family. They were all three put to the
torture. The old woman confessed in her anguish that she was a
witch--that she had cast her spells upon the young ladies, and that she
had caused the death of Lady Cromwell. The father and daughter,
stronger in mind than their unfortunate wife and parent, refused to
confess anything, and asserted their innocence to the last. They were
all three condemned to be hanged, and their bodies burned. The
daughter, who was young and good-looking, excited the pity of many
persons, and she was advised to plead pregnancy, that she might gain at
least a respite from death. The poor girl refused proudly, on the
ground that she would not be accounted both a witch and a strumpet.
Her half-witted old mother caught at the idea of a few weeks' longer
life, and asserted that she was pregnant. The court was convulsed with
laughter, in which the wretched victim herself joined, and this was
accounted an additional proof that she was a witch. The whole family
were executed on the 7th of April, 1593.
Sir Samuel Cromwell, as lord of the manor, received the sum of 40
pounds out of the confiscated property of the Samuels, which he turned
into a rent-charge of 40 shillings yearly, for the endowment of an
annual sermon or lecture upon the enormity of witchcraft, and this case
in particular, to be preached by a doctor or bachelor of divinity of
Queen's College, Cambridge. I have not been able to ascertain the exact
date at which this annual lecture was discontinued, but it appears to
have been preached so late as 1718, when Dr. Hutchinson published his
work upon witchcraft.
To carry on in proper chronological order the history of the witch
delusion in the British isles, it will be necessary to examine into
what was taking place in Scotland during all that part of the sixteenth
century anterior to the accession of James VI. to the crown of England.
We naturally expect that the Scotch,--a people renowned from the
earliest times for their powers of imagination,--should be more deeply
imbued with this gloomy superstition than their neighhours of the
South. The nature of their soil and climate tended to encourage the
dreams of early ignorance. Ghosts, goblins, wraiths, kelpies, and a
whole host of spiritual beings, were familiar to the dwellers by the
misty glens of the Highlands and the romantic streams of the Lowlands.
Their deeds, whether of good or ill, were enshrined in song, and took a
greater hold upon the imagination because "verse had sanctified them."
But it was not till the religious reformers began the practice of
straining Scripture to the severest extremes, that the arm of the law
was called upon to punish witchcraft as a crime per se. What Pope
Innocent VIII. had done for Germany and France, the preachers of the
Reformation did for the Scottish people. Witchcraft, instead of being a
mere article of faith, became enrolled in the statute book; and all
good subjects and true Christians were called upon to take arms against
it. The ninth Parliament of Queen Mary passed an act in 1563, which
decreed the punishment of death against witches and consulters with
witches, and immediately the whole bulk of the people were smitten with
an epidemic fear of the devil and his mortal agents. Persons in the
highest ranks of life shared and encouraged the delusion of the vulgar.
Many were themselves accused of witchcraft; and noble ladies were shown
to have dabbled in mystic arts, and proved to the world that, if they
were not witches, it was not for want of the will.
Among the dames who became notorious for endeavouring to effect their
wicked ends by the devil's aid, may be mentioned the celebrated Lady
Buccleugh, of Branxholme, familiar to all the readers of Sir Walter
Scott; the Countess of Lothian, the Countess of Angus, the Countess of
Athol, Lady Kerr, the Countess of Huntley, Euphemia Macalzean (the
daughter of Lord Cliftonhall), and Lady Fowlis. Among the celebrated of
the other sex who were accused of wizzardism was Sir Lewis Ballantyne,
the Lord Justice Clerk for Scotland, who, if we may believe Scot of
Scotstarvet, "dealt by curiosity with a warlock called Richard
Grahame," and prayed him to raise the devil. The warlock consented, and
raised him in propria persona, in the yard of his house in the
Canongate, "at sight of whom the Lord Justice Clerk was so terrified
that he took sickness and thereof died." By such idle reports as these
did the envious ruin the reputation of those they hated, though it
would appear in this case that Sir Lewis had been fool enough to make
the attempt of which he was accused, and that the success of the
experiment was the only apocryphal part of the story.
The enemies of John Knox invented a similar tale, which found ready
credence among the Roman Catholics; glad to attach any stigma to that
grand scourge of the vices of their church. It was reported that he and
his secretary went into the churchyard of St. Andrew's with the intent
to raise "some sanctes;" but that, by a mistake in their conjurations,
they raised the great fiend himself, instead of the saints they wished
to consult. The popular rumour added that Knox's secretary was so
frightened at the great horns, goggle eyes, and long tail of Satan,
that he went mad, and shortly afterwards died. Knox himself was built
of sterner stuff, and was not to be frightened.
The first name that occurs in the records of the High Court of
Justiciary of persons tried or executed for witchcraft is that of Janet
Bowman, in 1572, nine years after the passing of the act of Mary. No
particulars of her crimes are given, and against her name there only
stand the words, "convict and brynt." It is not, however, to be
inferred that, in this interval, no trials or executions took place;
for it appears on the authority of documents of unquestioned
authenticity in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, [Foreign Quarterly
Review, vol. vi. page 41.] that the Privy Council made a practice of
granting commissions to resident gentlemen and ministers, in every part
of Scotland, to examine, try, and execute witches within their own
parishes. No records of those who suffered from the sentence of these
tribunals have been preserved; but if popular tradition may be
believed, even to the amount of one-fourth of its assertions, their
number was fearful. After the year 1572, the entries of executions for
witchcraft in the records of the High Court become more frequent, but
do not average more than one per annum; another proof that trials for
this offence were in general entrusted to the local magistracy. The
latter appear to have ordered witches to the stake with as little
compunction, and after as summary a mode, as modern justices of the
peace order a poacher to the stocks.
As James VI. advanced in manhood, he took great interest in the witch
trials. One of them especially, that of Gellie Duncan, Dr. Fian, and
their accomplices, in the year 1591, engrossed his whole attention, and
no doubt suggested in some degree, the famous work on Demonology which
he wrote shortly afterwards. As these witches had made an attempt upon
his own life, it is not surprising, with his habits, that he should
have watched the case closely, or become strengthened in his prejudice
and superstition by its singular details. No other trial that could be
selected would give so fair an idea of the delusions of the Scottish
people as this. Whether we consider the number of victims, the
absurdity of the evidence, and the real villany of some of the persons
implicated, it is equally extraordinary.
Gellie Duncan, the prime witch in these proceedings, was servant to the
Deputy Bailiff of Tranent, a small town in Hadingtonshire, about ten
miles from Edinburgh. Though neither old nor ugly (as witches usually
were), but young and good-looking, her neighbours, from some suspicious
parts of her behaviour, had long considered her a witch. She had, it
appears, some pretensions to the healing art. Some cures which she
effected were so sudden, that the worthy Bailiff, her master, who, like
his neighbours, mistrusted her, considered them no less than
miraculous. In order to discover the truth, he put her to the torture;
but she obstinately refused to confess that she had dealings with the
devil. It was the popular belief that no witch would confess as long as
the mark which Satan had put upon her remained undiscovered upon her
body. Somebody present reminded the torturing Bailie of this fact, and
on examination, the devil's mark was found upon the throat of poor
Gellie. She was put to the torture again, and her fortitude giving way
under the extremity of her anguish, she confessed that she was indeed a
witch--that she had sold her soul to the devil, and effected all her
cures by his aid. This was something new in the witch creed, according
to which, the devil delighted more in laying diseases on, than in
taking them off; but Gellie Duncan fared no better on that account. The
torture was still applied, until she had named all her accomplices,
among whom were one Cunningham, a reputed wizard, known by the name of
Dr. Fian, a grave and matron-like witch, named Agnes Sampson, Euphemia
Macalzean, the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, already mentioned, and
nearly forty other persons, some of whom were the wives of respectable
individuals in the city of Edinburgh. Every one of these persons was
arrested, and the whole realm of Scotland thrown into commotion by the
extraordinary nature of the disclosures which were anticipated.
About two years previous to this time, James had suddenly left his
kingdom, and proceeded gallantly to Denmark, to fetch over his bride,
the Princess of Denmark, who had been detained by contrary weather in
the harbour of Upslo. After remaining for some months in Copenhagen, he
set sail with his young bride, and arrived safely in Leith, on the 1st
of May 1590, having experienced a most boisterous passage, and been
nearly wrecked. As soon as the arrest of Gellie Duncan and Fian became
known in Scotland, it was reported by everybody who pretended to be
well-informed that these witches and their associates had, by the
devil's means, raised the storms which had endangered the lives of the
King and Queen. Gellie, in her torture, had confessed that such was the
fact, and the whole kingdom waited aghast and open-mouthed for the
corroboration about to be furnished by the trial.
Agnes Sampson, the "grave and matron-like" witch implicated by Gellie
Duncan, was put to the horrible torture of the pilliewinkis. She laid
bare all the secrets of the sisterhood before she had suffered an hour,
and confessed that Gellie Duncan, Dr. Fian, Marion Lineup, Euphemia
Macalzean, herself, and upwards of two hundred witches and warlocks,
used to assemble at midnight in the kirk of North Berwick, where they
met the devil; that they had plotted there to attempt the King's life;
that they were incited to this by the old fiend himself, who had
asserted with a thundering oath that James was the greatest enemy he
ever had, and that there would be no peace for the devil's children
upon earth until he were got rid of; that the devil upon these
occasions always liked to have a little music, and that Gellie Duncan
used to play a reel before him on a trump or Jew's harp, to which all
the witches danced.