CHAPTER XVIII.. Accidents.

ACCIDENTS.

IN the reigne of King James 1st, as boyes were at play in Amesbury-street, it thundred and lightened. One of the boyes wore a little dagger by his side, which was melted in the scabbard, and the scabbard not hurt. This dagger Edward Earle of Hertford kept amongst his rarities. I have forgott if the boy was killed. (From old Mr. Bowman and Mr. Gauntlett)

The long street, Marleborough, was burned down to the ground in five houres, and the greatnesse of the fire encreased the wind. This was in 165-. This account I had from Thomas Henshaw, Esq. who was an eye-witness as he was on his journey to London.

In the gallery at Wilton hangs, under the picture of the first William Earl of Pembroke, the picture of a little reddish picked-nose dog (none of the prettiest) that his lordship loved. The dog starved himself after his master’s death.

Dr. Ralph Bathurst, Dean of Wells, and one of the chaplains to King Charles 1st, who is no superstitious man, protested to me that the curing of the King’s evill by the touch of the King doth puzzle his philosophie: for whether they were of the house of Yorke or Lancaster it did. ’Tis true indeed there are prayers read at the touching, but neither the King minds them nor the chaplains. Some confidently report that James Duke of Monmouth did it.

Imposture.—Richard Heydock, M.D., quondam fellow of New College in Oxford, was an ingenious and a learned person, but much against the hierarchie of the Church of England. He had a device to gaine proselytes, by preaching in his dreame; which was much noised abroad, and talked of as a miracle. But King James 1st being at Salisbury went to heare him. He observed that his harrangue was very methodicall, and that he did but counterfeit a sleep. He surprised the doctor by drawing his sword, and swearing, “God’s waunes, I will cut off his head”; at which the doctor startled and pretended to awake; and so the cheat was detected.

One M{istress} Katharine Waldron, a gentlewoman of good family, waited on Sir Francis Seymor’s lady, of Marleborough. Shee pretended to be bewitched by a certain woman, and had acquired such a strange habit that she would endure exquisite torments, as to have pinnes thrust into her flesh, nay under her nailes. These tricks of hers were about the time when King James wrote his Demonologie. His Majesty being in these parts, went to see her in one of her fitts. Shee lay on a bed, and the King saw her endure the torments aforesayd. The room, as it is easily to be believed, was full of company. His Majesty gave a sodain pluck to her coates, and tos’t them over her head; which surprise made her immediately start, and detected the cheate.

In the time of King Charles II. the drumming at the house of Mr. Monpesson, of Tydworth, made a great talke over England, of which Mr. Joseph Glanvill, Rector of Bath, hath largely writt; to which I refer the reader. But as he was an ingenious person, so I suspect he was a little too credulous; for Sir Ralph Bankes and Mr. Anthony Ettrick lay there together one night out of curiosity, to be satisfied. They did heare sometimes knockings; and if they said “Devill, knock so many knocks”; so many knocks would be answered. But Mr. Ettrick sometimes whispered the words, and there was then no returne: but he should have spoke in Latin or French for the detection of this.

Another time Sir Christopher Wren lay there. He could see no strange things, but sometimes he should heare a drumming, as one may drum with one’s hand upon wainscot; but he observed that this drumming was only when a certain maid-servant was in the next room: the partitions of the rooms are by borden-brasse, as wee call it. But all these remarked that the Devill kept no very unseasonable houres: it seldome knock’t after 12 at night, or before 6 in the morning.

About 167—there was a cabal of witches detected at Malmsbury. They ere examined by Sir James Long of Draycot-Cerne, and by him committed to Salisbury Gaol. I think there were seven or eight old women hanged. There were odd things sworne against them, as the strange manner of the dyeing of H. Denny’s horse, and of flying in the aire on a staffe. These examinations Sir James hath fairly written in a book which he promised to give to the Royall Societie.

At Salisbury a phantome appeared to Dr. Turbervill’s sister severall times, and it discovered to her a writing or deed of settlement that was hid behind the wainscot

Phantomes.—Though I myselfe never saw any such things, yet I will not conclude that there is no truth at all in these reports. I believe that extraordinarily there have been such apparitions; but where one is true a hundred are figments. There is a lecherie in lyeing and imposeing on the credulous; and the imagination of fearfull people is to admiration: e.g. Not long after the cave at Bathford was discovered (where the opus tessellatum was found), one of Mr. Skreen’s ploughboyes lyeing asleep near to the mouth of the cave, a gentleman in a boate on the river Avon, which runnes hard by, played on his flajolet. The boy apprehended the musique to be in the cave, and ran away in a lamentable fright, and his fearfull phancy made him believe he saw spirits in the cave. This Mr. Skreen told me, and that the neighbourhood are so confident of the truth of this, that there is no undeceiving of them.