Part 14

Even this was not enough. Will was bribed over by the promise of a good place in a gentleman's house if he would be properly demoniac again; and consenting thereto, played again his old tricks; but the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson, not believing a word of it all, encouraged him kindly to tell the truth, and not be afraid; so Will started up and was perfectly well, and for the greater satisfaction of the gentlefolks showed them how he worked.

And to prove how small was the value of evidence in those days, one Richard Mee--who was held to have deposed "That he had seen William Somers turn his Face directly backward, not moving his Body, and that his Eyes were as great as Beasts' Eyes, and that his Tongue would be thrust out of his Head to the bigness of a Calve's Tongue" when re-examined explained himself thus:--"My Meaning was that he turned his Face a good Way towards his Shoulder, and that his Eyes were something gogling; and by reason that it was Candle-light when I saw his Tongue thrust out, and by reason of my Conceit of the Strangeness of Somers's Troubles, it seemed somewhat bigger than, if Somers had been well, I should have thought it to have been." Again, a black dog which Will had cried out on as the devil, and which, by reason of his words had actually been taken for the devil with eyes glaring like fire, come back to repossess him, turned out to be nothing but a spurrier's dog crouching in the background of the darkening chamber. So, when carefully sifted, would the evidence of all such-like marvels prove to be merest chaff scattered on the ground; and yet, a century after, Mr. Richard Boulton is found repeating the story of Will Somers' possession as if it had never been disproved; and there are some even now living who would cite it as a case of proved spiritualism. Mr. Darrel was degraded from the ministry, and committed to close prison: rather harsh measures simply because he had more faith and a little less discretion than his neighbours.

GIFFARD'S ANECDOTES.

George Giffard, "minister of God's word in Maldon," put forth a little book in 1603, containing a number of witch stories and anecdotes, without names, dates, or places, yet written in a manner and style evidently proving their reliability, and all seeming to have come within his own personal knowledge as believed in by others. One, whom he knew, under the assumed name of one of his characters was constantly troubled by a hare, which his conscience accused him was a witch "she stared at him so;" and sometimes an ugly weasel would run through his yard; and sometimes a foul big cat sit upon his barn, for which he had no manner of liking; and an old woman of the place, whom he had been as careful to please as if she had been his mother, still frowned upon him to his exceeding discomfort; and a hog which overnight had eaten his meat with his fellows, quite hearty and well, in the morning was stark dead; and five or six hens died too, in a manner no one could understand, save by the power of witchcraft. And once another of his friends went to a cunning man who lived twenty miles off, complaining of his farm-yard losses: so the cunning man took a glass, and bidding him look in it, showed him a certain suspected witch therein, telling him that she had three or four imps, "some call them puckrels," one of which was like a gray cat, another like a weasel, a third like a mouse. There was also another cunning person--a woman--to whom a father took a child that had long been lame and pained. The woman told the man he had an ill neighbour, and that the child was forespoken. "Marie, if he would go home and bring her some of the clothes which the child lay in all night, she would tell him certainely." The father went home and did as he was bid, when the wise woman informed him that the girl was bewitched, counselled him what to do, and the "girle is well at this day, and a pretie quicke girle," says George Giffard, with a sneer at his neighbour's easy faith. Another had his wife much troubled; so he, too, went off to a wise woman, who told him that his wife was haunted by a fairy. As a counter-charm she was bidden to wear a part of St. John's Gospel ever about her, against which the fairies could not stand, so fled. Another good wife could not make her butter come: it was bewitched, and for a whole week obstinately disregarded the laws of butter nature: wherefore they heated a spit, red hot, and thrust it into the cream--and it came at once. The next morning the good wife met the suspected witch--"the old filth," she calls her with more emphasis than euphony. "Lord, how sowerly she looked upon me, and mumbled as she went! Ah, quoth she, you have an honest man to your husband. I hear how he doth use me!" The wife longed to scratch the witch, her stomach rose so against her, but she was afraid she would prove the stronger, for she was "a lustie old quean," and let her pass unmolested.

In a certain village a wealthy man was suddenly reduced to comparative poverty by extraordinary losses in his farm; he himself fell ill, and his child of seven years of age sickened and died. He sent to the same wise woman at R. H., who told him that he was bewitched, and moreover, that there were three witches and one wizard in the town where he lived. The forespoken farmer caused the one whom he most suspected to be seized and examined, who at last confessed, after making "much ado," and taking up the time of the worshipful justice to no good. She said that she had three imps, a cat Lightfoot, a toad Lunch, a weasel Makeshift. Lightfoot had been given to her sixteen years ago, by one Mother Barlie of W. in return for an oven cake; the toad and the weasel came of their own accord and offered their services gratuitously. The cat killed kine, the weasel killed horses, and the toad plagued men; so the poor old creature was sent to the county gaol, where she died before the assizes. Another woman, old Mother W. of Great T., had an imp like a weasel. "She was offended highly with one H. M.; home she went, and called forth her spirit, which lay in a pot of woole under her bed: she willed him to go plague the man: he inquired what she would give him, and he would kill H. M. She said she would give him a cocke, which she did, and he went, and the man fell sicke with a greate paine in his belly, languished and died; the witch was arraigned, condemned, and hanged, and did confesse all this."

Seven miles hence, at W. B., a man in good health suddenly fell sick, pined for half a year, and then died. His wife, suspecting evil doings, went to a cunning woman, who showed her in a glass the likeness of the witch who had destroyed him, wearing an old red cap with corners, such as women were used to wear. The old red-capped woman was taken, tried, soon brought to confess to the bewitching of the man, and executed. But before she died she told them all, how that she had a spirit in the likeness of a yellow dun cat, which came to her one night as she sat by the fire nursing angry thoughts against a neighbour with whom she had fallen out. She was frightened, she said, but the cat bid her not be afraid, for it had served an old dame, that was now dead, for five years down in Kent, and would serve her now, an she would. The woman took the cat at its word, and by it killed many a cow and hog of those who angered her: at last she sent it to this man, and the cat killed him. She was hanged, and the yellow dun imp was never more seen.

Mr. Giffard knew a church which had been robbed of its communion service: a wise man told the churchwardens what to do and the thief would surely ride in all haste to confess. As it proved. Another case was that of a child taken piteously ill. Under the cunning man's advice the father burnt its clothes, and while they were burning, the witch came running in, grievously pained. The child was well within two days. A butcher had a son, John, terribly afflicted with sores. Salves and plasters would not heal him; but when a cunning man showed him in a glass the form of the witch who had laid this harmful thing upon him, and they had cut off some of the boy's hair and burnt it, the old woman came to the house in all speed, crying, "John, John, scratch me!" So John scratched her till the blood came, and his sores all healed of themselves, without salve or plaster helping. A woman had blear eyes that were watery; a knave lodging at the house wrote a charm which she was always to wear about her neck, and never lose or look at. She wore her charm, and her eyes got quite well; but one day, prompted by Eve's sin, she opened the packet, and found a piece of paper on which was written, in the German tongue, "The devil plucke out thine eyes and fill their holes with dirt." Terrified at the unholy nature of her cure, the woman flung the charm away, and her eyes immediately became bleared and watery as before. A woman suspected of witchcraft was taken in hand by a gentleman, who undertook to induce her to confess. She was very stiff about the matter, and denied all dealings with the devil in any way. Suddenly, at some distance from them, appeared a weasel or a lobster, looking straight at them. "Look!" said the gentleman, "yonder same is thy spirit!" "Oh, master," said she, "that is a vermine. There be many of them everywhere." But as they went towards it, the weasel or lobster vanished clean out of sight. "Surely," said the gentleman, "it is thy spirit." But still she denied, "and with that her mouth was drawn all awrie." When a little further pressed she allowed all, and the gentleman, being no justice, sent her home, exhorting her to go to a magistrate and ease her soul by confession. As she got home she was met by another witch who came violently enraged against her. "Ah, thou beast! what hast thou done? thou hast bewrayed us all!" she said. "What remedy now?" said she. "What remedy?" saith the other, "send thy spirit and touch him." At that moment the gentleman felt, as it were, a flash of fire about him; but he lifted his hat and prayed, and the spirit came back and said it could do him no hurt, because he had faith. So then they sent it against his child, and the child was taken ill with great pain and died. The witches confessed and were hanged. Another witch had her spirit hidden in the boll of a tree; and there she held long conversations with this ghastly Ariel, he answering in a hollow ghoustie voice, as might be expected. When any offended her, she would go to the tree and release her imp to do them harm. She had killed many hogs, horses, and the like by this spirit; but at last justice got hold of her with its mailed hand and killed her. Another friend of Giffard's, also under the disguise of one of his characters, was twice on a jury, when certain old women were charged with harming their neighbours' goods and lives. There was no proof in either case, and the old women protested their innocence passionately; but the jury brought them in guilty, which was perfectly logical and right according to their notions of the law of that God who suffers the devil to torment the sons of men, and to delude old women into the possession of unholy powers. What, indeed, could be done with them when, by a look or a word, they could afflict even unto death the most beautiful of God's creatures, and send the devil to inhabit the purest of souls? The mischief lay in the fundamental creed, not so much in the application of it, terrible and bloody as it was; and it is against this creed, that I would most earnestly insist. It must be remembered, too, that Giffard writes ironically, and brings together all these cases as evidence of the foolishness and wickedness of the faith.

THE POSSESSED MAID OF THAMES STREET.

In 1603, Mary Glover, a merchant's daughter in Thames Street, gave herself out as bewitched, and said that Mother Jackson had done it. A little glimmering of reason made the physician Dr. Boncraft tell the Lord Chief Justice Anderson that Mother Jackson was wrongfully accused, and the girl was counterfeiting. So the Lord Chief Justice caused the Recorder of London, Sir John Crook, have her to him in his chambers in the Temple. The maid went with her mother and some neighbours, and in an hour's time came Mother Jackson, disguised like a country market woman, with a muffler hiding her face, an old hat, and a short cloak bespattered with mire. As soon as she entered the maid fell backward on the floor; "her Eyes drawn into her Head, her Tongue toward her Throat, her Mouth drawn up to her Ear, her Bodie became stiff and senseless, Her Lips being shut closs a plain and audible Voice came out from her Nostrils saying 'Hang her, hang her.'" The Recorder, willing to try her, called for a candle at which to light a sheet of paper, then held the burning paper to her hand till a blister came, rising and breaking and the water running down on the floor. But still the maid lay as if dead, with the Voice coming out of her Nostrils, saying, "Hang her, hang her." Not satisfied with the trial of burning, the Recorder got a long pin, which he made hot and thrust up her nostrils to see if she would "neese," wink, bend her brows, or stir her head; but still she lay as before, stiff, senseless, and as one dead. The minister, one Lewis Hughes, who tells this story which Sinclair quotes, told the Recorder that he had often prayed with the maid, and that when he concluded with the Lord's Prayer and came to "but deliver us from all evil," the maid would be tost and shaken as a mastiff might shake a cur. Then the Recorder bade the witch say the Lord's Prayer, but she could not say it: she kept on all right until the clause "deliver us from evil," and this she skipped over; neither would she confess that Jesus Christ was our Lord in the Articles of the Christian Faith. When Mary was in her fits, if the witch but so much as laid her hand upon her she was tost and shaken fearfully. This the Recorder wished to verify: so he bade first one, then another, of the neighbours come forward and touch her; which they did; but she never stirred till Mother Jackson touched her, when she was shaken as before. Then the Recorder said, "Lord, have mercy upon the woman!" for he was now fully convinced; and sent poor old Mother Jackson off to Newgate. As soon as she was sent off the maid came to herself, the voice ceased out of her nostrils, and she went home with her mother. Three weeks or more after the witch was condemned, the maid had the same fits, strange and fearful to behold, and the Recorder told the minister, and all the ministers of London, "that we might be ashamed to see a Child of God in the Claws of the Devil without any hope of deliverance but by such means as God had appointed--Fasting and Prayer." Then five ministers, all good Christians and sound believers, assembled and prayed from morning to candle-light, when Mary suddenly started out of her chair--they crying "Jesus help, Jesus save!"--and came up to Lewis Hughes, in a state of wildness and dismay. As he stood behind her holding her by the arms, she lifted both herself and him off the ground, foaming at the mouth and struggling thus all over the chamber; and then her strength gave way, and she fell as if dead, her head hanging down and her limbs, which had been so stiff and frozen, now supple and limber. In a short time her eyes came back into their place and her tongue came out of her throat, and she looked round and said cheerfully, "Oh! he is come, he is come! The Comforter is come! the Comforter is come! I am delivered, I am delivered!" Her father hearing these words wept and said, "These were her grandfather's words when he was at the stake, the fire crackling about him," for he died a martyr to the Reformed Faith in Queen Mary's time. Then she prayed and thanked God till her voice was weak, and so the company separated, and Mary went home. Afterwards she was put with Lewis Hughes for a year, lest Satan should assault her again, and Mr. John Swan wrote the most canting and nauseating book on her "case" that ever fanatic penned or the duped and the gulled believed. But poor old Mother Jackson was dead: and those who mourned for her, mourned in secret and silence and shame.

There was another case of possession, this same year--Thomas Harrison, the Boy of Norwich--chiefly remarkable for having procured such attention from the ecclesiastical authorities that seven persons were formally licensed to have private prayers and fasting for his deliverance. But the bishop and commissioners who had seen his fits thought him an impostor, so his case died out for want of public support.

And now we have the master of kingcraft on the throne, with his mania against witches, his private vices, and public follies, treacherous, cruel, narrow-minded, and cowardly beyond anything that has ever disgraced the English throne before or since. And one of the first trials for witchcraft during his reign was that disgraceful affair in which Somerset and his wife, Foreman, Sir Thomas Overbury, and Mrs. Turner were all mixed up together.

SWEET FATHER FOREMAN.

That Carr and Lady Essex should have an intrigue together was not so bad, but that Mrs. Turner should have recourse to charms and conjurations, "to inchant the Viscount's affection towards her," that "much time should be spent, many words of witchcraft, great cost in making pictures of wax, crosses of silver, and little babies for that use," that specially, there should be among the images of wax, one "very sumptuously apparrelled in silke and sattin, as alsoe another sitting in forme of a naked woman spreading and laying forth her haires in a glass," was terrible misdoing against both God and the king. The murder of Sir Thomas Overbury was venial; the intrigue between his favourite and another man's wife was venial too; his own vices were mere kindly flea-bites on his dignity; but charms and conjurations, and my Lady Essex calling that old wizard Foreman her "sweet father"--this was more than the British Solomon could well digest. So when he had got tired of Carr and wanted to be rid of him, he suddenly remembered sweet Father Foreman, disciple of Dr. Dee, and Mrs. Turner, inventor of yellow starch for ruffs and falling bands, and not only smote Somerset straight in the face for his own share, but sent a side shaft after him, through his "creatures." Well for himself was it that sweet Father Foreman was dead and buried deep; so there only remained Mrs. Turner and one or two inferior agents in the matter--just enough to keep the people amused, and satisfy the royal lust for witch blood. Somerset came to the block on another count, about as false as the rest; and Mrs. Turner swung from the gibbet in her yellow ruff on every plea but the right one, and for any sin but those of her real and actual life. After her death was found her black scarf full of white crosses: and the mould in which Father Foreman had cast his leaden images of women; and written charms spread out on fair white parchment; and, worst of all, a list of all the ladies who had gone to consult the sorcerer as to how they might gain the love of other lords than their own; which list the Lord Chief Justice would not read out in court because, said the gossips, his own wife's name was the first that caught his eye.

THE WITCHES OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

"Of poor parentage, and poor education," old Agnes Browne had but a sorry life of it in the little town of Gilsborough where she lived. She had one daughter, Joan Vaughan, or Varnham, "a maide, or at least unmarried," says the old black-letter book maliciously; "as gratious as the mother, and both of them as farre from grace as Heaven from hell;" which Joan was "so well brought up vnder her mother's elbow, that she hangd with her for company vnder her mother's nose." It seems that one day, Joan, being in the company of a certain Mistress Belcher, "a virtuous and godly Gentlewoman of the same towne of Gilsborough, whether of purpose to giue occasion of anger to the saide Mistris Belcher, or but to continue her vilde and ordinary custome of behauiour, committed something either in speech or gesture so vnfitting, and vnseeming the nature of womanhood" that Mistress Belcher's patience could bear with her no longer. She got up, beat Joan Vaughan, and "forced her to avoid the company." Joan went away muttering that she would be revenged; to which replied Mrs. Belcher stoutly, that she feared neither her nor her mother, and bade her do her worst. Then Joan went home to her mother, and both together devised such a punishment that Mrs. Belcher was griped and gnawed of her body, her mouth drawn all awry, and in such powerful fits that she could scarce be held, crying out incessantly in her fits, "Here comes Joane Vaughan, away with Joane Vaughan!" till all the world knew that she was bewitched, and that old Agnes Browne and her daughter had caused the trouble. Mistress Belcher's brother, one Master Avery, hearing of his sister's sickness and extremity, came to see her; and when he saw her, was moved to such anguish and indignation that he must needs go to the house of the witches to hale them to his sister, that she might draw their blood. But though he twice essayed, he was twice arrested by some miraculous agency, spell-bound, and unable to move hand or foot; he could not, by any possibility, advance beyond a certain spot, whereby the witches were safe for this time at least, "the devil, who was standing sentinel," being stronger than he. Wherefore sorrowfully he turned back, and went home to his own place. But these "imps of the devil" had longer arms than he, and in a very short time he was as grievously tormented as his sister, his torments enduring until the witches were arrested and taken to Northampton gaol. When there, nothing would satisfy Mistress Belcher and her brother Master Avery but that they should go to the prison and "scratch" the witches; which they did, and both recovered of their pains marvellously on the instant. "Howbeit they were no sooner out of sight, but they fell againe into their old traunces, and were more violently tormented than before; for when Mischiefe is once a foote, she grows in short time so headstrong, that she is hardly curbed." Mistress Belcher and Master Avery returning home from Northampton in a coach, after their godly exercise of drawing blood from these two wretched women, saw suddenly a man and woman riding both upon a black horse. At which Master Avery cried out that either they or their horses should presently miscarry; and he had no sooner spoken than both their horses fell down dead. Wherefore, for all these crimes, as well as for bewitching a young child to death, Agnes Browne and her daughter Joan were adjudged guilty, and hanged on that 22nd of July, protesting their innocence to the last. And then it came out that about a fortnight before her apprehension Agnes Browne, Katherine Gardiner, and Joan Lucas, "all birds of a winge," had been seen riding on a sow's back to a place called Ravenstrop, to see one Mother Rhoades, an old witch that dwelt there. But before they got there old Mother Rhoades had died, "and in her last cast cried out that there were three of her old friends comming to see her, but they came too late. Howbeit she would meet with them in another place within a month after. And thus much concerning Agnes Browne and her daughter Joane Vaughan," says the old black-letter book contemptuously.

The son of witches, Arthur Bill could not control his appointed fate. Suspected by the authorities, but without proof, he and his father and mother were swum for trial, tied cross bound and flung into the water, where they floated and did not sink. Arthur was accused of bewitching to her death one Martha Aspine, as also of having bewitched sundry cattle; and as the parents had a bad name, it was thought best to try them all. After this trial of the water, Arthur was afraid, says the black-letter book, lest his father should relent and betray him and them all; whereupon he sent for his mother, and both together bewitched a round ball into his father's throat, so that he could not speak a word. When the ball was got out, the father proved the principal witness against them. The poor mother, who seems to have been a loving, sensitive, downcast woman, fainted many times during this terrible period; "Many times complaining to her spirit," says the bitter, uncharitable, anonymous author, "that the power of the Law would bee stronger than the power of her art, and that shee saw no other likelihood but that shee should be hanged as her Sonne was like to bee: To whom her spirit answered, giuing this sorry comfort, that shee should not bee hanged, but to preuent that shee should cut her owne throatt. Shee, hearing this sentence and holding it definitive, in great agony and horror of minde and conscience fell a rauing, crying out that the irreuocable Iudgement of her death was giuen, and that shee was damned perpetually; cursing and banning the time wherein shee was borne, and the houre wherein shee was conceiued." A short time after "shee made good the Deuil's worde, and to preuent the Iustice of the Law, and to saue the hangman a labour, cut her owne throate." The poor boy was in great misery when he heard of his mother's death, and knew now that what despair had done for her, the tyranny of superstition would do for him; yet "he stood out stiffly for his innocence," and when found guilty, broke out into grievous cries, saying that he had now found the Law to have a power above Justice, for that it had condemned an Innocent. At the gallows he said the same thing, refusing to confess to Martha Aspine's murder, and "thus with a dissembling Tongue, and a corrupted conscience, hee ended his course in this world, with little hope or respect (as it seemed) of the world to come." What became of his three familiars, Grissil, Ball, and Jack, we are not informed, neither of what forms or functions they were, nor of what colours or dimensions.

Grievously did Mistress Moulsho offend Ellen Jenkinson, when she caused her to be searched for witch-marks, which of course were found; for Helen's character was notorious, and there is no smoke without a little fire. So Helen, in revenge, played Mistress Moulsho a trick that brought herself to the gallows. For "at that time Mistris Moulsho had a Bucke of clothes to be washt out. The next morning, the Mayd, when shee came to hang them forth to dry, spyed the Cloathes, but especially Mistris Moulsho's Smocke, to bee all bespotted with the pictures of Toades, Snakes, and other ougly Creatures, which making her agast, she went presently and told her mistris, who, looking on them, smild, saying nothing else but this: 'Here are fine Hobgoblins indeede.' And being a Gentlewoman of a stout courage, went immediately to the house of the sayd Hellen Ienkinson, and with an angry countenance told her of this matter, threatening her that if her Linnen were not shortly cleered from those foule spots shee would scratch out both her eyes; and so not staying for any answere, went home and found her linnen as white as it was at first." Helen was soon after arraigned for the death of a child, by witchcraft, but this story of Mrs. Moulsho's clothes all bespotted with the figures of toads and snakes stood in the stead of any more rational evidence. When found guilty, the poor creature cried out, "Woe is me, I now cast away!" And when at the place of execution, she "made no other Confession but this. That shee was guiltlesse, and neuer shewed signe of Contrition for what was past, nor any sorrow at all, more than did accompany the feare of death. Thus ended this Woman her miserable life, after shee had lived many yeares poore, wretched, scorned, and forsaken of the world."

Of Mary Barber, the last of the sad crew hanged at Northampton on those bloody assizes, the author gives no special account, but plenty of abuse, mixed up with the strangely cruel and immoral morality of the day. He says that "as shee was of meane Parents, so was she monstrous and hideous both in her life and actions. Her education and barbarous Nature neuer promising to the world anything but what was rude, violent, and without any hope of proportion more than only in the square of uitiousnesse. For out of the oblyuion and blindnesse of her seduced senses, she gaue way to all the passionate and earthly faculties of the flesh, and followed all the Fantazmas Vanities and Chimeras of her polluted and vnreasonable delights, forsaking the Society of Grace, and growing enamored vpon all the euill that Malice or Frenzy could minister to her vicious desires and intendments." She was put in prison on the charge of bewitching a man to death, but "the prison (which makes men bee fellowes and chambermates with theeves and murtherers) the common guests of such dispised Innes, and should cause the Imprisoned Party (like a Christian Arithmetician) to number and cast vp the amount of his own Life, neuer put her in minde of the hatefull transgressions shee had committed, and to consider the filth and leprosie of her soule, and intreate heaven's mercy for the release thereof. Prison put her not in minde of her graue, nor the grates and lockes put her in remembrance of hell, which depriued her of the ioy of liberty, which shee saw others possesse. The iangling of irons did not put her in minde of the chaines wherewith shee should be bound in eternall torments, vnlesse heaven's mercy vnloosed them, nor of the howling terrors and gnashing of teeth which in hel euery soule shall receiue for the particular offences committed in this life, without vnfained and hearty contrition. Shee neuer remembered or thought shee must die, or trembled for feare of what should come to her after death. But as her use was alwaies knowne to be deuilish, so her death was at last found to be desperate. For shee (and the rest before named) being brought from the common gaole of Northampton to Northampton Castle, where the Assizes are vsually held, were seuerally arraigned and indited for the offences they had formerly committed, but to the inditement they pleaded not guilty. Putting therefore their causes to the triall of the Countrey, they were found guilty, and deserved death by the verdit of a credible Iury returned. So without any confession or contrition, like birds of a feather they all held and hangd together for company at Abington gallowes hard by Northampton the two and twintieth day of Iuly last past; Leauing behinde them in prison many others tainted with the same corruption, who without much mercy and repentance are likely to follow them in the same tract of Precedencie."

THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIRE.

In Pendle Forest, a wild tract of land on the borders of Yorkshire, lived an old woman about the age of fourscore, who had been a witch for fifty years, and had brought up her own children, and instructed her grandchildren, to be witches. "She was a generall agent for the Deuill in all these partes;" her name was Elizabeth Southernes, usually called Mother Demdike; the date of her arraignment 1612. She was the first tried of this celebrated "coven," twenty of whom stood before Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, charged with all the crimes lying in sorcery, magic, and witchcraft. Old Mother Demdike died in prison before her trial, but on her being taken before the magistrate who convicted them all, Roger Nowell, Esq., she made such a confession as effectually insured her due share of execration, and hedged in the consciences of all who had assailed her from any possible pangs of self-reproach or doubt.

About fifty years ago, she said, she was returning home from begging, when, near a stone pit in the Pendle Forest, she met a spirit or devil in the shape of a boy, with one half of his coat brown and the other half black, who said to her, if she would give him her soul, she should have all that she might desire. After a little further talk, during which he told her that his name was Tibb, he vanished away, and she saw him no more for this time. For five or six years Mother Demdike never asked any kind of help or harm of Tibb, who always came to her at "daylight gate" (twilight); but one Sabbath morning, she having her little child on her knee, and being in a light slumber, Tibb came to her in the likeness of a brown dog, and forced himself on her knee, trying to get blood from under her left arm. Mother Demdike awoke sore troubled and amazed, and strove to say, "Jesus, save my child," but could not, neither could she say, "Jesus, save myself." In a short time the brown dog vanished away, and she was "almost starke madde for the space of eight weekes." She and Tibb had never done much harm, she said; not even to Richard Baldwin, for all that he had put them off his land, and taken her daughter's day's work at his mill without fee or reward, and when she, led by her grandchild Alison (for she was quite blind), went to ask for pay, gave them only hard words and insolence for their pains, saying, "he would burn the one, and hang the other," and bidding them begone for a couple of witches--and worse. She confessed though, after a little pressing, that at that moment Tibb called out to her, "Revenge thee of him!" to whom she answered, "Revenge thou either of him or his!" on which he vanished away, and she saw him no more. She would not say what was the vengeance done, or if any. But if she was silent, and not prone to confession, there were others, and those of her own blood, not so reticent. Elizabeth Device her daughter, and Alison and James and Jennet Device, her grandchildren, testified against her and each other in a wonderful manner, and filled up all the blanks in the most masterly and graphic style.

Alison said that her grandmother had seduced her to the service of the devil, by giving her a great black dog as her imp or spirit, with which dog she had lamed one John Law, a petit chapman or pedlar, as he was going through Colnefield with his pack at his back. Alison wanted to buy pins of him, but John Law refused to loose his pack or sell them to her; so Alison in a rage called for her black dog, to see if revenge could not do what fair words had failed in. When the black dog came he said, "What wouldst thou have me to do with yonder man?" To whom she answered, "What canst thou do at him?" and the dog answered again, "I can lame him." "Lame him," says Alison Device; and before the pedlar went forty yards he fell lame. When questioned, he, on his side, said, that as he was going through Colnefield he met a big black dog with very fearful fiery eyes, great teeth, and a terrible countenance, which looked at him steadily then passed away; and immediately after he was bewitched into lameness and deformity. And this took place after having met Alison Device and refused to sell her any pins. Then Alison fell to weeping and praying, beseeching God and that worshipful company to pardon her sins. She said further that her grandmother had bewitched John Nutter's cow to death, and Richard Baldwin's woman-child on account of the quarrel before reported, saying that she would pray for Baldwin himself, "both still and loud," and that she was always after some matter of devilry and enchantment, if not for the bad of others then for the good of herself. For once, Alison got a piggin full of blue milk by begging, and when she came to look into it, she found a quarter of a pound of butter there, which was not there before, and which she verily believed old Mother Demdike had procured by her enchantments. Then Alison turned against the rival Hecate, Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, between whom and her family raged a deadly feud with Mother Demdike and her family; accusing her of having bewitched her father, John Device, to death, because he had neglected to pay her the yearly tax of an aghen dole (eight pounds) of meal, which he had covenanted to give her on consideration that she would not harm him. For they had been robbed, these poor people, of a quarter of a peck of cut oatmeal and linens worth some twenty shillings, and they had found a coif and band belonging to them on Anne Whittle's daughter; so John Device was afraid that old Chattox would do them some grievous injury by her sorceries if they cried out about it, therefore made that covenant for the aghen dole of meal, the non-payment of which for one year set Chattox free from her side of the bargain and cost John's life. She said, too, that Chattox had bewitched sundry persons and cattle, killing John Nutter's cow because he, John Nutter, had kicked over her canfull of milk, misliking her devilish way of placing two sticks across it; and slaying Anne Nutter because she laughed and mocked at her; slaying John Morris' child, too, by a picture of clay--with other misdeeds to be hereafter verified and substantiated. So Alison Device was hanged, weeping bitterly, and very penitent.

James Device, her brother, testified to meeting a brown dog coming from his grandmother's about a month ago, and to hearing a noise as of a number of children shrieking and crying, "near daylight gate." Another time he heard a foul yelling as of a multitude of cats, and soon after this there came into his bed a thing like a cat or a hare, and coloured black, which lay heavily on him for about an hour. He said that his sister Alison had bewitched Bullock's child, and that old Mother Chattox had dug up three skulls, and taken out eight teeth, four of which she kept for herself and gave four to Mother Demdike; and that Demdike had made a picture of clay of Anne Nutter, and had burned it, by which the said Anne had been bewitched to death. Also she had bewitched to death one Mitton, because he would not give her a penny; with other iniquities of the same sort. He said that his mother, Elizabeth Device, had a spirit like a brown dog called Ball, and that they all met at Malking Tower; all the witches of Pendle--and they were not a few--going out in their own shapes, and finding foals of different colours ready for their riding when they got out: Jennet Preston was the last: when they all vanished. He then confessed, for his own part, that his grandmother Demdike told him not to eat the communion bread one day when he went to church, but to give it to the first thing he met on the road on his way homewards. He did not obey her, but ate the bread as a good Christian should; and on the way he met with a thing like a hare which asked him for the bread; but he said he had not got it; whereupon the hare got very angry and threatened to tear him in pieces, but James "sained" himself, and the devil vanished. This, repeated in various forms, was about the pith of what James Device confessed, his confession not including any remarkable betrayal of himself, or admission of any practical and positive evil. His young sister Jennet, a little lassie of nine, supplied the deficiencies. She had evidently been suborned, says Wright, and gave evidence enough to have hanged half Lancashire. She said that James had sold himself to the devil, and that his spirit was a black dog called Dandy, by whom he had bewitched many people to death; and she confirmed what he had said of Jennet Preston's spirit, which was a white foal with a black spot in its forehead. And then she said that she had seen the witches' meetings, but had taken no part in them; and that on Good Friday they had all dined off a roasted wether which James had stolen from Christian Swyers; and that John Bulcocke turned the spit. She said that her mother Elizabeth had taught her two prayers, the one to get drink and the other to cure the bewitched. The one to get drink was a very short one, simply--"Crucifixus, hoc signum vitam eternam, Amen;" but this would bring good drink into the house in a very strange manner. The other, the prayer to cure the bewitched, was longer:--

"Vpon Good Friday, I will fast while I may, Vntill I heare them knell, Our Lord's owne Bell, Lord in his messe With his twelve Apostles good, What hath he in his hand? Ligh in Leath wand: What hath he in his other hand? Heauen's doore key. Open, open, Heauen doore keyes, Steck, steck, hell doore. Let Crizum child Go to it Mother mild. What is yonder that casts a light so farrandly? Mine owne deare Sone that's nail'd to the Tree, He is nail'd sore by the heart and hand, And holy harne Panne. Well is that man That Fryday spell can, His Childe to learne A Crosse of Blewe, and another of Red, As good Lord was to the Roode. Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe Vpon the grounde of holy weepe; Good Lord came walking by, Sleep'st thou, wak'st thou, Gabriel? No, Lord, I am sted with stick and stake, That I can neither sleepe nor wake: Rise vp, Gabriel, and goe with me, The stick nor the stake shall neuer deere thee, Sweete Jesus our Lorde. Amen."

On such conclusive testimony as this, and for such fearful crimes, James Device was condemned for "as dangerous and malicious a witch as ever lived in these parts of Lancashire, of his time, and spotted with as much Innocent bloud as euer any witch of his yeares." Poor lad!

"O Barbarous and inhumane Monster, beyond example; so farre from sensible vnderstanding of thy owne miserie as to bring thy owne naturall children into mischiefe and bondage, and thyselfe to be a witnesse vpone the gallowes, to see thy owne children, by thy deuillish instructions, hatcht vp in villanie and witchcraft, to suffer with thee, euen in the beginning of their time, a shamefull and untimely Death!" These are the words which Thomas Potts addresses to Elizabeth Device, widow of John the bewitched, daughter to old Demdike the "rankest hag that ever troubled daylight," and mother of Alison and James the confessing witches; mother, also, of young Jennet of nine, their accuser and hers, by whose testimony she was mainly condemned. Elizabeth was charged with having bewitched sundry people to death, by means and aid of her spirit, the brown dog Ball, spoken of by James; also she had gone to the Sabbath held at Malking Tower, where they had assembled to consult how they could get old Mother Demdike, their leader, out of prison, by killing her gaoler and blowing up the castle, and where they had beef and bacon and roasted mutton--the mutton that same wether of Christopher Swyers' of Barley, which James had stolen and killed; with other things as damnable and insignificant. So Elizabeth Device, "this odious witch, who was branded with a preposterous marke in Nature even from her Birth, which was her left Eye standing lower than the other, the one looking down the other looking up," was condemned to die because she was poor and ugly, and had a little lying jade for a daughter, who made up fine stories for the gentlefolks.

Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, was next in influence, power, and age to Mother Demdike, and she began her confession by saying that old Demdike had originally seduced her by giving her the devil in the shape and proportion of a man, who got her, body and soul, and sucked on her left ribs, and was called Fancie. Afterwards she had another spirit like a spotted bitch, called Tibbe, who gave them all to eat and to drink, and said they should have gold and silver as much as they wanted. But they never got the gold and silver at all, and what they ate and drank did not satisfy them. "This Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, was a very old withered, spent, decrepid creature, her Sight almost gone; A dangerous Witch of very long continuance; always opposite to old Demdike; For whom the one fauoured the other hated deadly: and how they curse and accuse one an other in their Examinations may appear. In her Witchcraft always more ready to doe mischiefe to men's goods than themselves; Her lippes ever chattering and talking; but no man knew what. She lived in the Forrest of Pendle amongst this wicked Company of dangerous Witches. Yet in her Examination and Confession she dealt always very plainely and truely; for vpon a speciall occasion, being oftentimes examined in open Court, she was neuer found to vary, but alwayes to agree in one and the selfe same thing. I place her in order next to that wicked Firebrand of mischiefe, old Demdike, because from these two sprung all the rest in order; and even the Children and Friendes of these two notorious Witches."

Nothing special or very graphic was elicited about old Chattox. She had certainly bewitched to death sundry of the neighbourhood, lately deceased; but then they all did that; and her devil, Fancie, came to her in various shapes--sometimes like a bear, gaping as though he would worry her, which was not a pleasant manner of fulfilling his contract--but generally as a man, in whom she took great delight. She confessed to a charm for blessing forespoken drink; which she had chanted for John Moore's wife, she said, whose beer had been spoilt by Mother Demdike or some of her crew:--