Elizabeth Style's Confession--Signing a Covenant with
Blood--Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary
Penny--Somerset Witches--Witch Oil--Power to injure
Men and Cattle--Elizabeth Style sentenced to
Death--Running backwards round a Church--Compact with
Satan--More Mischief--Richard Hathaway's Accusation
against Sarah Morduck--Women hunted in the Streets by
a Mob--A Judge's Opinion of Witchcraft--Supposed
Sufferer from Witchcraft prayed for in the Church, and
a Subscription raised for him--Richard Hathaway
convicted of falsely accusing a Woman of
Witchcraft--Witch and Stolen Plate--Man
Bewitched--Charm for Sore Eyes--Young Woman
Bewitched--Flames issuing from a Bewitched Person's
Mouth--Tormenting a Witch--Jane Wenham's Witchcrafts
and Trial--The last Persons who suffered in England
for Witchcraft--Long List of Persons who suffered as
Witches.
Elizabeth Style, of Stoke Trister, Somersetshire, was accused, in the
year 1664, by divers persons of witchcraft. She confessed before
Robert Hunt, Esquire, a justice of the peace for the county, that the
devil, ten years before that time, had appeared to her as a handsome
young man, offered her money, said she would live gay, and have all
the pleasures of the world for twelve years, if she would with her
blood sign a document, binding herself to obey his laws, and give her
soul over to him. She agreed to do as requested; whereupon he pricked
the fourth finger of her right hand, and with a few drops of blood
that issued from the wound she signed the engagement.
When she desired to do harm, Satan gave her power according to their
agreement. About a month before her examination she desired him to
torment Elizabeth Hall by thrusting thorns into her flesh--a request
he promised to comply with. She declared that, not long before her
apprehension, she, Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary Penny met the
devil at night, in a common near Trister Gate. Their meeting
terminated with dancing and feasting.
Similar meetings subsequently took place. Before Style and her
companion witches started to midnight meetings, they anointed their
foreheads with an oil given them by a spirit. They were then carried
swiftly through the air. Sometimes they were present at the meetings
in body, but more frequently in spirit only. The devil gave them power
to injure men and cattle, either by a touch or curse. Style gave the
names of many men and women in the neighbourhood who attended the
meetings. The meetings being ended, the devil suddenly vanished or
burnt himself in flames, and the people went home, singing "Merry we
meet, merry we meet, and merry we part."
The poor miserable woman was tried before a jury of her countrymen,
and found guilty of witchcraft. Sentence of death was passed on her,
but she escaped punishment by the hands of an ordinary executioner,
for before the day fixed for her execution she died in prison.
Alice Duke, a confederate of Elizabeth Style, being brought before Mr.
Hunt for examination on a charge of witchcraft, stated that she and
Anne Bishop went to the churchyard at night, and stepped backward
round the church three times. In their first round they met a man in
black clothes, who returned with them. In the second round they met a
big black toad, which leapt into deponent's apron. As they went round
the third time they met a rat, that vanished into air. Like many more
witches entering into a compact with Satan, she could have her wishes
and revenge. If she cursed any person or thing with "a pox," evil
happened the object of her hatred.
Witches were found in every part of Somerset in the seventeenth
century. Hundreds of them were brought to trial; but as their reported
doings, confessions, and punishments were in all essential particulars
the same as those of Elizabeth Style and Alice Duke, they are
unimportant here.
Richard Hathaway appeared before Lord Chief Justice Holt at the
Guildford assizes in 1701, to support a charge of witchcraft against
Sarah Morduck. Hathaway frequently vomited pins in great numbers,
pieces of tin, nails, and small stones. He foamed at the mouth, and
barked like a dog; sometimes he felt a burning sensation, and not
unfrequently lay as if dead. Being convinced that Sarah Morduck caused
his troubles, he scratched her "above the breath," to draw blood from
her. Subsequent to this operation he recovered, and remained well for
six weeks. All his afflictions returned, and the suspected witch was
scratched a second time. To escape her tormentors at Southwark, she
went to London; but, her fame preceding or following her, she was
hunted in the streets by an infuriated mob. Hathaway pursued the
unhappy woman to the great metropolis, and took her before Sir Thomas
Lane, a judge who regarded witchcraft in a different light to that
which the Lord Chief Justice did. Sir Thomas ordered her to be
stripped, to ascertain whether she had any witch-marks; and Hathaway,
still suffering, scratched her for the third time. Sarah Morduck was
committed to prison as a dangerous witch. Her supposed victim,
Hathaway, became an object of prayer in the churches, and
subscriptions were raised to defray his charges at the assizes. In
July Sarah Morduck was brought, as already stated, before Lord Chief
Justice Holt, but escaped with her life, for no other reason than that
the judge did not believe in witchcraft. Hathaway's conduct being
inquired into, he was brought to trial, when it was ascertained that
his sayings about being bewitched were false. He was therefore
sentenced, by the same judge that had liberated Sarah Morduck, to
imprisonment for a year, and to stand in the pillory three times as a
cheat and liar.
Sending a witch to catch a witch or thief occasionally had its
beneficial results. On the communion service having been stolen from a
church, a wise man instructed the church-wardens how to discover the
thief. They did as directed, and, true enough, the thief hastened to
give himself up to justice; and, what proved better, he restored the
stolen plate. One man having a child sorely afflicted with boils,
consulted a wizard. By direction of the cunning man, a portion of the
child's hair was cut off and thrown into the fire. This had the effect
of compelling a witch to hasten to the house and confess that she had
in reality brought trouble on the child. The father scratched the
witch "above the breath," and the sufferer recovered.
Jane Stretton, a young woman twenty years of age, was bewitched in
1669, and consequently suffered much by flax, hair, thread, and pins
gathering in her throat. Still more strange, red-hot flames issued
from her mouth. A wise man's wife was suspected of bringing about the
calamity. Various means were resorted to with the view of establishing
her guilt. Sympathising neighbours were consulted, and one of them
suggested a method that proved effectual. Foam was collected from
Jane's mouth and chin, and thrown into the fire, as a charm to injure
her tormentor. We are assured the expedient succeeded admirably. While
the foam hissed in the flames, the witch, compelled by the operation,
came into the house to confess that she alone had caused the young
woman's distemper.
One of the last persons generally supposed to have been condemned to
death in England for witchcraft was Jane Wenham, residing in Walkerne,
a village in Hertford. For years her neighbours suspected her to be a
witch. In 1712 she was tried before one of the legal tribunals, and
condemned on evidence of a singular nature. It appears that she went
to Matthew Gibson, a servant to John Chapman, and asked for a
pennyworth of straw. He refused to give her any, and she went away
muttering threats against him. Soon thereafter Gibson became like an
insane man, and ran three miles along the highway, asking every one he
met for a pennyworth of straw. Then he gathered all the straws he
could find by the roadside and put them into his shirt, which he used
as a sack. Gibson's master met Jane, and called her a witch. Offended
at such an imputation, she brought Mr. Chapman before Sir Herbert
Chauncey, a magistrate, on the charge of defaming her character. The
magistrate recommended the pursuer and defender to submit the case to
the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, that the dispute might be settled quietly. To
the parson they accordingly went; and he awarded Jane one shilling of
damages. The decision did not please Jane; and out of revenge, it was
subsequently alleged, she bewitched the minister's servant-maid, Anne
Thorne. As soon as the suspected witch had left the parsonage, the
maid felt a giddiness in her head, which impelled her to run away
through fields and over fences, notwithstanding her having a very sore
knee. On her way she met a little old woman, who asked her where she
was going. To this inquiry Anne replied, "I am going to Cromer for
sticks." The little woman said it seemed unnecessary to go so far, and
pointed out an oak-tree close at hand where she could get them. The
little woman vanished like a spirit, and Anne returned home, in a
partial state of nudity, with a quantity of sticks wrapped in her gown
and apron. Mrs. Gardiner, who, like the minister, her husband,
believed in witchcraft, on hearing the girl's tale, said she would
burn the witch; and, suiting the action to the words, threw the sticks
into the fire. The charm had the desired effect; for immediately Jane
Wenham came in, and made a false statement touching the cause of her
call. That did not, however, deceive the people at the parsonage, who
were convinced the burning of the sticks had made her come, whether
she would or not. She was apprehended on suspicion, and put to the
test. The minister asked her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, but she
could not say it. This being regarded as presumptive evidence of
guilt, Wenham's persecutors brought her to trial. Three clergymen and
thirteen other witnesses gave evidence in the case. Proof was adduced
that she had by witchcraft killed cattle, taken the power from men's
bodies, destroyed people's substance, turned divers persons into a
state of insanity, and by her curses and evil eye had killed a child.
Witnesses also swore that she had on various occasions assumed the
form of a cat. The jury found Wenham guilty, and the judge condemned
her to death, but, like a humane Christian, he applied and obtained a
pardon for the culprit.
We now come to the last victims who suffered in England for the
alleged crime of witchcraft. One Mrs. Hicks, and her little daughter
nine years of age, were executed on the scaffold at Huntingdon in
1716, for the suppositious offences of raising storms and selling
their souls to the devil.
With the judicial murder of this unfortunate mother and her innocent
daughter we close a long list of tragedies which disgraced England for
hundreds of years--which exhibits the ignorance and violence of past
ages. Dr. Sprenger estimates that nine million persons have been
burned or otherwise put to death as witches during the Christian
epoch. For such a dreadful waste of life Catholics and Protestants
were equally guilty. Any one who raised his voice on behalf of the
proscribed class, ran the risk of himself being accused of sorcery, or
at least of heresy. At last, in 1563, J. Weier, a physician in
Germany, spoke boldly against the belief in witchcraft. Twenty years
later, Reginald Scot, as already stated, wrote and spoke, not against
witches, but against the absurdity of believing that such persons
existed.
Happily, no longer can hysterical girls and malicious individuals give
false evidence in a court of law touching the feigned crime of
witchcraft; no longer can the witch-finder exert his skill; no longer
can judges and jury condemn to the flames or scaffold suspected
witches and wizards; and no longer can an ignorant people listen to
the despairing cries--cries which neither evoked pity nor secured
mercy--of victims of superstition expiring amidst blazing faggots. But
yet superstition lingers amongst us, as we shall show under the head
"Superstition in the Nineteenth Century."