A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 Part 23

The reader will remember that Justice North had questioned the equity of Justice Raymond's decision at Exeter. He has told us the story of a trial at Taunton-Dean, where he himself had to try a witch.[32] A ten-year-old girl, who was taking strange fits and spitting out pins, was the witness against an old man whom she accused of bewitching her.

The defendant made "a Defence as orderly and well expressed as I ever heard spoke." The judge then asked the justice of the peace who had committed the man his opinion. He said that he believed the girl, "doubling herself in her Fit, as being convulsed, bent her Head down close to her Stomacher, and with her Mouth, took Pins out of the Edge of that, and then, righting herself a little, spit them into some By-stander's Hands." "The Sum of it was Malice, Threatening, and Circ.u.mstances of Imposture in the Girl." As the judge went downstairs after the man had been acquitted, "an hideous old woman" cried to him, "My Lord, Forty Years ago they would have hang'd me for a Witch, and they could not; and now they would have hang'd my poor Son."

The five cases we have cited, while not so celebrated as those on the other side, were quite as representative of what was going on in England. It is to be regretted that we have not the records by which to compute the acquittals of this period. In a large number of cases where we have depositions we have no statement of the outcome. This is particularly true of Yorks.h.i.+re. As has been pointed out in the earlier part of the chapter, we can be sure that most of these cases were dismissed or were never brought to trial.

When we come to the question of the forms of evidence presented during this period, we have a story that has been told before. Female juries, convulsive children or child pretenders, we have met them all before.

Two or three differences may nevertheless be noted. The use of spectral evidence was becoming increasingly common. The spectres, as always, a.s.sumed weird forms. Nicholas Rames's wife (at Longwitton, in the north) saw Elizabeth Fenwick and the Devil dancing together.[33] A sick boy in Cornwall saw a "Woman in a blue Jerkin and Red Petticoat with Yellow and Green patches," who was quickly identified and put in hold.[34]

Sometimes the spectres were more material. Jane Milburne of Newcastle testified that Dorothy Stranger, in the form of a cat, had leaped upon her and held her to the ground for a quarter of an hour.[35] A "Barber's boy" in Cambridge had escaped from a spectral woman in the isle of Ely, but she followed him to Cambridge and killed him with a blow. "He had the exact mark in his forehead, being dead, where the Spiritual Woman did hit him alive."[36] It is unnecessary to multiply cases. The _Collection of Modern Relations_ is full of the same sort of evidence.

It has been seen that in nearly every epoch of witch history the voluntary and involuntary confessions of the accused had greatly simplified the difficulties of prosecution. The witches whom Matthew Hopkins discovered were too ready to confess to enormous and unnatural crimes. In this respect there is a marked change in the period of the later Stuarts. Elizabeth Style of Somerset in 1663 and the three Devons.h.i.+re witches of 1682 were the only ones who made confessions.

Elizabeth Style[37] had probably been "watched," in spite of Glanvill's statement to the contrary, perhaps somewhat in the same torturing way as the Suffolk witches whom Hopkins "discovered," and her wild confession showed the effect. The Devons.h.i.+re women were half-witted creatures, of the type that had always been most voluble in confession; but such were now exceptions.

This means one of two things. Either the witches of the Restoration were by some chance a more intelligent set, or they were showing more spirit than ever before because they had more supporters and fairer treatment in court. It is quite possible that both suppositions have in them some elements of truth. As the belief in the powers of witches developed in form and theory, it came to draw within its radius more groups of people. In its earlier stages the attack upon the witch had been in part the community's way of ridding itself of a disreputable member. By the time that the process of attack had been developed for a century, it had become less impersonal. Personal hatreds were now more often the occasion of accusation. Individual malice was playing a larger role. In consequence those who were accused were more often those who were capable of fighting for themselves or who had friends to back them. And those friends were more numerous and zealous because the att.i.tude of the public and of the courts was more friendly to the accused witch. This explanation is at best, however, nothing more than a suggestion. We have not the material for confident generalization.

One other form of evidence must be mentioned. The town of Newcastle, which in 1649 had sent to Scotland for a witchfinder, was able in 1673 to make use of home-grown talent. In this instance it was a woman, Ann Armstrong, who implicated a score of her neighbors and at length went around pointing out witches. She was a smooth-witted woman who was probably taking a shrewd method of turning off charges against herself.

Her testimony dealt with witch gatherings or conventicles held at various times and places. She told whom she had seen there and what they had said about their crimes. She told of their feasts and of their dances. Poor woman, she had herself been compelled to sing for them while they danced. Nor was this the worst. She had been terribly misused. She had been often turned into a horse, then bridled and ridden.[38]

It would not be worth while to go further into Ann Armstrong's stories.

It is enough to remark that she offered details, as to harm done to certain individuals in certain ways, which tallied closely with the sworn statements of those individuals as to what had happened to them at the times specified. The conclusion cannot be avoided that the female witchfinder had been at no small pains to get even such minute details in exact form. She had gathered together all the witch stories of that part of Northumberland and had embodied them in her account of the confessions made at the "conventicles."

What was the ruling of the court on all this evidence we do not know. We have only one instance in which any evidence was ruled out. That was at the trial of Julian c.o.x in 1663. Justice Archer tried an experiment in that trial, but before doing so he explained to the court that no account was to be taken of the result in making up their verdict. He had heard that a witch could not repeat the pet.i.tion in the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." The witch indeed failed to meet the test.[39]

In the course of this period we have two trials that reveal a connection between witchcraft and other crimes. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that the charge of witchcraft was sometimes made when other crimes were suspected, but could not be proved. The first case concerned a rich farmer in Northamptons.h.i.+re who had gained the ill will of a woman named Ann Foster. Thirty of his sheep were found dead with their "Leggs broke in pieces, and their Bones all shattered in their Skins." A little later his house and barns were set on fire. Ann Foster was brought to trial for using witchcraft against him, confessed to it, and was hanged.[40]

The other case was at Brightling in Suss.e.x, not far from London. There a woman who was suspected as the one who had told a servant that Joseph Cruther's house would be burned--a prophecy which came true very shortly--was accused as a witch. She had been accused years before at the Maidstone a.s.sizes, but had gone free. This time she was "watched"

for twenty-four hours and four ministers kept a fast over the affair.[41]

These cases are worth something as an indication that the charge of witchcraft was still a method of getting rid of people whom the community feared.

At the beginning of this chapter the years 1660 to 1688 were marked off as const.i.tuting a single epoch in the history of the superst.i.tion. Yet those years were by no means characterized by the same sort of court verdicts. The sixties saw a decided increase over the years of the Commonwealth in the number of trials and in the number of executions.

The seventies witnessed a rapid dropping off in both figures. Even more so the eighties. By the close of the eighties the accounts of witchcraft were exceedingly rare. The decisions of the courts in the matter were in a state of fluctuation. Two things were happening. The justices of the peace were growing much more reluctant to send accused witches to the a.s.size courts; and the itinerant judges as a body were, in spite of the decisions of Hale and Raymond, more careful in witch trials than ever before, and more likely to withstand public sentiment.

The changes of opinion, as reflected in the literature of the time, especially in the literature of the subject, will show the same tendencies. We shall take them up in the next chapter.

[1] See Raine, ed., _York Depositions_ (Surtees Soc.), preface, x.x.x.

[2] Joseph Hunter, _Life of Heywood_ (London, 1842), 167, and Heywood's _Diaries_, ed. J. H. Turner (Brighouse, 1881-1885), I, 199; III, 100.

Heywood, who was one of the leading Dissenters of his time, must not be credited with extreme superst.i.tion. In noting the death of a boy whom his parents believed bewitched, he wrote, "Oh that they saw the lords hand." _Diary_, I, 287.

[3] William Drage, _Daimonomageia_ (London, 1665), 32-38.

[4] _The Lord's Arm Stretched Out, ... or a True Relation of the wonderful Deliverance of James Barrow ..._ (London, 1664).

[5] Compare Drage, _op. cit._, 36, 39, 42, with _The Lord's Arm Stretched Out_, 17. Mary Hall, whose cure Drage celebrates, had friends among the Baptists. Drage seems to connect her case with those of Barrow and Hannah Crump, both of whom were helped by that "dispirited people"

whom the author of _The Lord's Arm Stretched Out_ exalts.

[6] Drage, _op. cit._, 34.

[7] _Yorks.h.i.+re Notes and Queries_, I (Bradford, 1885), 26. But a physician in Winchester Park, whom Hannah Crump had consulted, had asked five pounds to unbewitch her.

[8] Drage, _op. cit._, 39.

[9] _York Depositions_, 127.

[10] See E. Mackenzie, _History of Northumberland_ (Newcastle, 1825), II, 33-36. We do not know that the woman was excused, but the case was before Henry Ogle and we may fairly guess the outcome.

[11] Glanvill, _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, pt. ii, 191-209.

[12] This is the estimate of him by North, who adds: "and he knew it."

Roger North, _Life of the Rt. Hon. Francis North, Baron of Guilford ..._ (London, 1742), 62-63.

[13] _Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington_, II, pt. I (Chetham Soc., no. 36, 1855), 155.

[14] In his _Religio Medici_. See _Sir Thomas Browne's Works_ (ed. S.

Wilkin, London, 1851-1852), II, 43.

[15] _Ibid._, IV, 389.

[16] Roger North, _op. cit._, 61.

[17] Inderwick has given a good ill.u.s.tration of Hale's weakness of character: "I confess," he says, "to a feeling of pain at finding him in October, 1660, sitting as a judge at the Old Bailey, trying and condemning to death batches of the regicides, men under whose orders he had himself acted, who had been his colleagues in parliament, with whom he had sat on committees to alter the law." _Interregnum_, 217-218.

[18] _Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports_, XIV, 9, p. 480.

[19] Bishop Burnet, in his _Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale_ (London, 1682), does not seem to have felt called upon to mention the Bury trial at all. See also Lord Campbell, _Lives of the Chief Justices_ (London, 1849), I, 563-567.

[20] Roger North, _op. cit._, 130, 131. The story, as here told, ascribes the event to the year preceding Lord Guilford's first western circuit--_i. e._, to 1674. But this perhaps need not be taken too exactly, and the witch was probably that Elizabeth Peac.o.c.k who was acquitted in 1670 and again in the case of 1672 described above. At least the list of "Indictments for witchcraft on the Western Circuit from 1670 to 1712," published by Inderwick in his _Sidelights on the Stuarts_ (London, 1888), shows no other acquittal in Wilts.h.i.+re during this decade.

[21] For this letter see the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1832, pt. I, 405-410, 489-402. The story is confirmed in part by Inderwick's finds in the western Gaol Delivery records. As to the trustworthiness of this unknown justice of the peace, see above, pp. 160, 162, and notes.

[22] That the judge was Sir Richard Rainsford appears from Inderwick's list, mentioned above, note 20.

[23] _A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against ...

Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards_ (London, 1682).

And _The Tryal, Condemnation and Execution of Three Witches ..._ (London, 1682). See also below, note 26, and appendix A, -- 6.

[24] Roger North, _op. cit._, 130.

[25] At a trial at the York a.s.sizes in 1687 Sir John Reresby seems to have played about the same part that North played at Exeter. Serjeant Powell, later to be chief justice, was presiding over the case. "An old woman was condemned for a witch. Those who were more credulous in points of this nature than myself, conceived the evidence to be very strong against her. The boy she was said to have bewitched fell down on a sudden before all the court when he saw her, and would then as suddenly return to himself again, and very distinctly relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her." _Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby_ (London, 1813), 329.

[26] There is indeed some evidence that Raymond wished not to condemn the women, but yielded nevertheless to public opinion. In a pamphlet published five years later it is stated that the judge "in his charge to the jury gave his Opinion that these three poor Women (as he supposed) were weary of their Lives, and that he thought it proper for them to be carryed to the Parish from whence they came, and that the Parish should be charged with their Maintainance; for he thought their oppressing Poverty had constrained them to wish for Death." Unhappily the neighbors made such an outcry that the women were found guilty and sentenced. This is from a later and somewhat untrustworthy account, but it fits in well with what North says of the case. _The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary Lloyd_ [sic], _and Susanna Edwards: ..._ (London, 1687).

[27] The second part of Glanvill's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ is full of these depositions.

[28] For a full account of this affair see Glanvill's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, pt. ii, preface and Relation I. Glanvill had investigated the matter and had diligently collected all the evidence. He was familiar also with what the "deriders" had to say, and we can discover their point of view from his answers. See also John Beaumont, _An Historical, Physiological and Theological Treatise of Spirits, Apparitions, Witchcrafts, and other Magical Practices_ (London, 1705), 307-309.

[29] _Ibid._, 309.

[30] _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1671_, 105, 171.