Earl of Derby's Death--A Queen Enchanted--Image of a
young King made for Wicked Purposes--Belgrave on
Charms--Childebert's Device for detecting Witches--A
Pot of Ointment--Witch Burned--Witch
Ointment--Men-Wolves--Component Parts of Witch
Ointment--Church Authorities' Instructions to
Inquisitors--Killing by a Look or Wish--The King of
Sweden and his Witches--Witches' Help in War--Witches
causing a Plague--Cattle Poisoned--Various Charms--How
to make Hair grow Long and Yellow--Holy Vestments--An
Angel's Charm to Pope Leo--Physicians' Faith in
Charms--Illusions--Inescation--Insemination--Method of
discovering if one is Bewitched--Egyptian Laws--Curing
the King's Evil.
Andrews, in his continuation of Henry's _History of Great Britain_,
speaking of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, says his death was attributed to
witchcraft. No doubt the disease appeared to be peculiar. After his
death a wax image with hair, in colour like that of the earl, was
found in his chamber, which confirmed the suspicions entertained as to
the cause of his demise. Another alleged atrocious crime was that of
the wife of Marshal D'Ancre. She was beheaded for witchcraft, in so
far as she had enchanted the queen, and made an image of the young
king in virgin wax, and melted away one of its legs that he might
become a cripple. Old Belgrave, in his _Astrological Practice of
Physic_, observes: "Under adverse planets, and by Satan's subtlety,
witches injured man and beast by making images or models of them, and
pricking the likenesses with thorns, pins, or needles."
Childebert's device for detecting witches who dealt in charms, was to
torture them by putting sharp instruments betwixt every nail of their
fingers and toes. Judges, before whom witches were tried, were
cautioned not to allow them to come near their persons nor the seat of
judgment. That they might be all the more secure from witchcraft,
judges kept suspended from their necks conjured salt, palm, holy
herbs, and wax hallowed by the Church. To compel witches to confess
their guilt, officers of justice were wont to write the seven words
spoken on the cross, and cause these, with relics of saints, to be
hung round the culprits' necks. When these charms were thus applied,
it was impossible for witches to refrain from confessing their guilt,
if at the same time they were sufficiently racked and tortured.
An incredible story is told of a gentlewoman in Lyons, who possessed a
pot of ointment of such rare virtue, that the application of it to
one's body proved sufficient to transport the individual, in an
instant, through the air to distant towns and countries. The lady
being one evening in a room with her lover, anointing herself with
part of the ointment, and repeating words in an under tone, was in the
twinkling of an eye carried away through the air. Her companion,
though astonished and somewhat alarmed, did as he had observed his
fair friend do, and _presto_ he was conveyed away many miles to an
assembly of witches. Afraid at what he beheld, he uttered a holy
ejaculation. In an instant the assembly vanished, leaving him alone.
He returned on foot to Lyons, and brought an accusation of witchcraft
against his lover. The charge being proven, the woman, with her
ointment, was consigned to the flames.
Witches and warlocks, learned in the art of transubstantiation, could
by means of witch ointment turn themselves into wolves. Peter Burget
and Michael Worden, having by means of such ointment turned themselves
into wolves, killed and ate a large number of people. One night, when
the men-wolves were out on one of their murderous expeditions, an
archer shot one of them with a charmed arrow. Tracing the wounded
creature to Peter's residence, the pursuers found the luckless man in
bed in his natural shape, with the arrow deep in his thigh. Another
man-wolf was punished by having his feet amputated, and in a moment he
became a man without hands or feet.
Mountain parsley, wolves-bane, leaves of the poplar, and soot were
frequently used in the preparation of witch ointment; and so were
yellow water-cresses, the blood of a mouse, night-shade, oil, etc. A
witch, rubbed all over with a preparation of these, could skim through
the air in a moonlight night, singing, dancing, and otherwise making
merry with her companions.
So generally did the belief in witchcraft, incantations, and charms
prevail in the time of Pope Innocent VIII. and of Pope Julius II.,
that the Church authorities sent to the inquisitors the following
official notice and instructions:--"It has come to our ears that many
lewd persons of both kinds, as well male as female, using the company
of the devils _Incubus_ and _Succubus_, with incantations, charms,
conjurations, etc., to destroy the births of women with child, the
young of all cattle, the corn of the field, the grapes of the vines,
the fruit of the trees; also men, women, and cattle of all kinds, and
beasts of the field; and with their said enchantments, etc., do
utterly extinguish and spoil all vineyards, orchards, meadows,
pastures, grass, green corn, and ripe corn: yea, men and women
themselves are by their imprecations so afflicted with external and
internal pains and diseases that the births of children are but few:
Our pleasure therefore is, that all impediments that may hinder the
inquisitors' office be utterly removed from among the people, lest
this blot of heresy proceed to poison and defile them that may yet be
innocent: And therefore we ordain, by virtue of the apostolical
authority, that our inquisitors may execute the office of inquisition
by all tortures and afflictions, in all places, and upon all persons,
what and wheresoever, as well in every place and diocese as upon any
person; and that as freely as though they were named, expressed, or
cited in this our commission."
Witches have confessed their power to kill a neighbour by a word, a
wish, or a look.
In the wars between the kings of Denmark and Sweden, in 1563, the
Danes wrote that the King of Sweden carried about with him in camp
four old witches, who with their charms so affected the Danes that
they were thereby unable to annoy their enemies. One of the witches,
on being taken prisoner, confessed her guilt.
The West Indians, Muscovites, and Huns sought the help of witches in
time of war.
A band of witches in Italy, in 1536, renewed a plague, then almost
ceased, by besmearing with an ointment and a powder the posts and
doors of men's houses. One of the wicked old hags having been
apprehended and examined, confessed the fact. The like villany was
perpetrated elsewhere about the same time. Weeping and lamentation
were heard in every dwelling for fathers stricken down by death; but,
strange to say, the women escaped injury. Cattle were killed through
wolves' dung being hidden in stalls and among the pasture where they
fed. The stench caused the animals to refrain from eating, and made
them run about as if they were mad.
Witches highly prized, and frequently used in their nefarious art, the
hair growing on the end of a wolf's tail, the brain of a cat, the head
of a lizard, the bone of a green frog from which the flesh had been
eaten by ants. One bone of a frog engendered love, while another bone
caused hatred.
Garments of the dead, candles that had burned before a stiffened
corpse, and needles wherewith dead bodies had been sewn in sheets,
were precious in the eyes of cunning persons.
Witches and magicians had power, by means of charms, to put into the
minds and consciences of men such thoughts as they pleased; and,
moreover, they could induce people to disclose their heart secrets.
Maids hung up a quantity of their hair before the image of St. Urbane,
trusting that by so doing their hair would grow long and yellow.
A holy vest was at times given by the Pope to a faithful son of Mother
Church, to protect him from violence of every description. The manner
of making a charmed waistcoat is thus explained:--On Christmas night,
flax thread was spun by a virgin girl, and afterwards woven by her.
After the garment was sewn by the same little hands which had spun the
thread and woven the cloth, two figures in needlework were wrought on
it to resemble Beelzebub and the Cross. One of these vestments gave
the wearer courage in the hour of danger: witches were unable to harm
him, bullets could not hit him, the sword's edge was turned aside, and
the pointed spear levelled against him proved harmless.
Leo, Pope of Rome, reported that an angel delivered to him the
following holy writing--a charm of inestimable value, as we shall
presently learn:--"+ Jesus, + Christus, + Messias, + Soter, +
Emmanuel, + Sabbath, + Adonii, + Unigenitus, + Majestas, + Paracletus,
+ Salvator Noster, + Agiros Iskiros, + Agios, + Adonatos, + Gasper, +
Melchior, + Mattheus, + Marcus, + Lucas, + Johannes." The angel, so
said Leo, directed him to take it to King Charles when he went to the
battle of Roncesvalles. Moreover, the holy messenger said that
whatever man or woman carried a copy of this writing, and every day
said three paternosters, three aves, and one creed, would not be
overcome by enemies, either bodily or ghostly; nor would the person
thus protected be robbed, or slain by thieves, pestilence, thunder, or
lightning; neither would he be hurt by fire or water.
By the writings of various authors, we gather that both the physician
and priest placed a high value on amulets, charms, and incantations.
Argerius Ferrarius, a celebrated physician, expressed the opinion that
physic might benefit a patient to a certain degree, but that, to
complete a cure, the application of amulets, charms, and characters
was desirable. He cited many cases that came under his own observation
and that of other physicians. Galen expressed the opinion that charms
prevented bones sticking in people's throats.
Physicians skilled in magic applied three seeds of three-leaved grass
to tertian ague, and four to a quartian. Of Homerical medicines,
Argerius Ferrarius writes there are four sorts, whereof amulets,
characters, and charms are three; but he commends and prefers the
fourth, which, he says, consists in illusions or stratagems. He tells
how Philodotus put a cap of lead upon one's head who imagined he was
headless, whereby the person was freed from his delusion. Another
cured a woman, under the impression that a serpent continually gnawed
her entrails, by giving her a vomit, and making her believe that she
vomited a little serpent.
A man who imagined that he was always burning in a fire, had his
illusion dispelled by seeing fire taken out from beneath his bed.
Great stress is put on the alleged fact that hiccough is cured by
sudden fear or startling news, and that agues and many other diseases
may be removed by excitement.
Inescation is a curious method practised for the cure of certain
diseases. The cure may be effected by impregnating a proper medium or
vehicle with some of the mumia or vital spirit of the patient, and
giving it to an inferior animal to swallow. It is pretended that the
animal unites and assimilates the mumia with itself, and imbibes its
vicious qualities, and by that means restores health to the person to
whom the mumia belonged.
Insemination is a cure, in certain respects, not unlike to that of
inescation. It is performed by mixing the medium, impregnated with the
mumia taken from the patient, with earth wherein has been sown the
seed of a plant appropriate to the disease; but care must be taken to
sprinkle it from time to time with water wherein the part affected had
been washed. The disease, we are told, becomes less virulent as the
plant grows.
By pouring molten lead into water held above a sick man, it could be
discovered whether he was bewitched. If his illness arose from wicked
and cruel tormentors, his image appeared in the lead; but if the
disease resulted from natural causes, no distinct impression remained
on the lead.
Montaigne says that it was an Egyptian law that the physician should
for the first three days take charge of his patient at the patient's
own peril, but afterwards at his own. He mentions that, in his time,
physicians gave their pills in odd numbers, appointed remarkable days
in the year for taking medicine, and gathered their simples at certain
hours.
The mode of curing the King's Evil, or scrofula, by royal touch, has
been so often referred to by various writers that we might well pass
it without notice, were it not that our object is to bring together in
these pages the many varied particulars of ancient superstition.
Consequently we shall briefly describe the ceremonies gone through
when sick persons were brought before the king. Let us premise, in the
first place, that all parties are neither agreed as to the time nor
the sovereign who first applied his royal hand to this method of
healing disease. The kings of England and France long pretended to
possess the power of curing scrofula by touching the sore. The right
or faculty, the French people say, existed originally in their
monarch; but the English nation would not admit this, and claimed the
power for their king. In support of England's claim, monkish writers
assert that the virtue was inherent in our kings as early as the days
of Edward the Confessor. Others will have it that King Robert first
exhibited the miraculous gift. Charles VIII. of France touched several
persons at Rome, and cured them. At whatever time the power first
manifested itself is of little importance; and through whatever royal
line it descended need not trouble those alive, seeing, we are
assured, the virtue perished with the last British sovereign of the
House of Stuart. But, to return to the manner of curing the king's
evil, we shall give, as an instance, the method pursued by Charles II.
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, when healing any of his subjects:--
On 14th May 1664 a notice was given that his sacred Majesty would
continue the healing of his people for the evil during the remainder
of that month, and then cease doing so until Michaelmas. His Majesty
sat in state in the banqueting house, and the chirurgeons led the sick
to the throne; there, the invalids kneeling, the monarch stroked their
bodies with his hands. The ceremony being concluded, a chaplain in
attendance said, "He put his hands upon them, and healed them." These
words were repeated as every one was touched. After all the diseased
persons were operated on, another chaplain, kneeling, delivered gold
angels, attached to white ribbons, to his Majesty, who suspended one
about the neck of every one to whom his healing virtue had gone forth.
Prayers being said for the sick, the ceremony concluded by his Majesty
washing his hands in a basin brought to him by the lord chamberlain
and comptroller of the household.
If a monarch could not be found to cure the king's evil, it might have
been effected by the touch of a seventh son, between whom and his
eldest brother no daughter had come to swell the family circle. And
the virtue of healing by laying on of hands existed in particular
noble families of untainted blood.