Part I, CII, 489 ff.; Inderwick, Side-Lights on the

Stuarts, 2d ed., 1891, pp. 171-172, 191. [156] York Depositions, pp. 192, 202-203. [157] The same, p. 247. [158] Margaret Stothard’s case, The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend, [II] 1888, p. 395. [159] See page 54. [160] F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 1718, pp. 44-45 (ed. 1720, pp. 61-62). There is a very interesting account of the second of these trials (that of Elizabeth Horner or Turner) in a letter to the Bishop of Exeter from Archdeacon (?) Blackburne, who attended at the bishop’s request. This letter, dated Sept. 14, 1696, has been printed by Mr. T. Quiller-Couch in Notes and Queries, 1st Series, XI, 498-499, and again in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, III, 103-104. The spectral evidence comes out clearly. Of Holt, Blackburne remarks: “My Lord Chief Justice by his questions and manner of summing up the Evidence seem’d to me to believe nothing of witchery at all.” [161] Chap. 160, sec. 5, p. 384. “The court justified themselves from books of law, and the authorities of Keble, Dalton and other lawyers, then of the first character, who lay down rules of conviction as absurd and dangerous, as any which were practiced in New England.” Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, ed. 1795, II, 27. [162] James Burvile testified “That hearing the Scratchings and Noises of Cats, he went out, and saw several of them; that one of them had a Face like _Jane Wenham_; that he was present several Times when _Anne Thorn_ said she saw Cats about her Bed; and more he would have attested, but this was thought sufficient by the Court” ([F. Bragge,] A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712, p. 29). After the conviction of the witch, Ann was still afflicted: “_Ann Thorn_ continues to be frequently troubl’d with the Apparition either of _Jane Wenham_ in her own Shape, or that of a Cat, which speaks to her, and tempts her to destroy her self with a Knife that it brings along with it” ([Bragge,] Witchcraft Farther Display’d, 1712, Introduction). In 1711 spectral evidence was admitted at the trial of eight witches at Carrickfergus, in Ireland (A Narrative of some Strange Events that took place in Island Magee, and Neighbourhood, in 1711, by an Eye Witness, Belfast, 1822, Appendix, pp. 49-50). [163] A Tryal of Witches, as above, p. 40. [164] “The Judge and all the Court were fully satisfied with the Verdict” (A Tryal, etc., p. 58). [165] For a learned discussion of spectral evidence see J. B. Thayer, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1890, LXV, 471 ff. [166] Dr. Hutchinson, who acknowledges his indebtedness to Holt, mentions six witches as tried by the Chief Justice from 1691 to 1696, and adds, “Several others in other Places, about Eleven in all, have been tried for Witches before my Lord Chief Justice _Holt_, and have all been acquitted. The last of them was _Sarah Morduck_, accused by _Richard Hathaway_, and tried at _Guilford_ Assize, _Anno_ 1701” (Historical Essay, 2d ed., pp. 58-63). It is not clear whether the “eleven in all” includes the seven previously mentioned. On the Morduck-Hathaway case, cf. Howell, State Trials, XIV, 639 ff. [167] Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England, pp. 136, 138. [168] Compare Mr. Goodell’s remarks on the reversal of attainder, in his Reasons for Concluding that the Act of 1711 became a Law, 1884. I have not considered here the bearing of this reversal, or of the attempt to pay damages to the survivors or their heirs, because these things came somewhat later. It must be noted, however, that all such measures of reparation, whatever may be thought of their sufficiency, were unexampled in the history of witch trials the world over, and that they came before the last condemnation for witchcraft in England (1712). See the references appended by Mr. Goodell to the Act of 1703 in The Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, VI, 49-50. [169] See p. 17, above. [170] Legge, as above, p. 264. [171] 2d ed., 1720. [172] P. 83; 2d ed., p. 108. [173] See W. F. Poole, in Winsor’s Memorial History of Boston, II, 133. Dr. Poole finds twelve executions in New England before 1692. This makes the total for all New England, from 1620 to the present day, 34 (including two who died in jail). Cf. C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, Boston, 1867, II, 351; S. G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft, pp. 191 ff. In this part of my paper I have made a few quotations from a book of my own, The Old Farmer and his Almanack (Boston, 1904). [174] “They were the first of all people,” writes Mr. Goodell, “to escape the thraldom” (Reasons for Concluding that the Act of 1711 became a Law, 1884, p. 21). [175] See Francis Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 2d edition, 1720, pp. 45 ff. [176] John Stearne, Hopkins’s associate, speaks of what he has himself “learned and observed since the 25. of March 1645 as being in part an agent in finding out or discovering some of those since that time, being about two hundred in number, in Essex, Suffolke, Northamptonshire, Huntingtonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolke, Cambridgeshire, and the Isle of Ely in the County of Cambridge, besides other places, justly and deservedly executed upon their legall tryalls” (A Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-craft, London, 1648, To the Reader). Stearne wrote his book after the death of Hopkins, which took place in 1647. In the life of Hopkins in the Dictionary of National Biography, the Witch-Finder is said to have begun operations in 1644. This is a manifest error. Hopkins himself (Discovery of Witches, 1647, p. 2, see below) says that his experiences began at Manningtree “in _March_ 1644,” but Stearne’s statement makes it clear that this is Old Style, for Stearne was also concerned in the Manningtree business, and the year is completely established by the report of the proceedings,--A True and Exact Relation of the several Informations [etc.] of the late Witches, London, 1645 (cf. T. B. Howell’s State Trials, IV, 817 ff.). The traditional statement that Hopkins was hanged as a wizard (cf. Hudibras, Part ii, canto 3, 11. 139 ff.) is disproved by the following passage in Stearne: “I am certain (not-withstanding whatsoever hath been said of him) he died peaceably at Manningtree, after a long sicknesse of a Consumption, as many of his generation had done before him, without any trouble of conscience for what he had done, as was falsly reported of him” (p. 61). For the record of his burial, Aug. 12, 1647, see Notes and Queries, 1st Series, X, 285. The notion that Hopkins was “swum” and, since he floated, was subsequently hanged, most likely originated in a document criticising his performances which was brought before the Norfolk judges in 1646 or (more probably) in 1647. Hopkins printed a reply to this document shortly before his death,--The Discovery of Witches: in Answer to severall Queries, lately delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk. And now published by Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder (London, 1647). The first “query,” as printed by Hopkins, was this:--“That he must needs be the greatest Witch, Sorcerer, and Wizzard himselfe, else hee could not doe it.” Cf. Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 145 ff.; Lives of Twelve Bad Men, edited by Thomas Seccombe, London, 1894, p. 64; Ady, A Candle in the Dark, 1656, pp. 101-102; James Howell, as above (p. 8, note 7); Gough, British Topography, 1780, II, 254. [177] Legge, Scottish Review, XVIII, 273-274. Ady (A Candle in the Dark, 1656, p. 105) says: “A little before the Conquest of _Scotland_ (as is reported upon good intelligence) the Presbytery of _Scotland_ did, by their own pretended authority, take upon them to Summon, Convent, Censure, and Condemn people to cruel death for Witches and (as is credibly reported) they caused four thousand to be executed by Fire and Halter, and had as many in prison to be tried by them, when God sent his conquering Sword to suppress them.” The “conquest” to which Ady refers is Cromwell’s in 1650. It is well known that from 1640 to Cromwell’s invasion, witch prosecution ran riot in Scotland, but that during his supremacy there were very few executions in that country (see Legge, pp. 266-267). Cf. p. 8, note 6, above. [178] Die praktischen Folgen des Aberglaubens, p. 34. [179] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, I, 492. [180] Dæmonolatreia, Lugduni, 1595. [181] See p. 42, above. [182] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, II, 38 ff. [183] See the extraordinary enumeration in Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869, II, 293 ff.; cf. S. Riezler, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bayern, pp. 141 ff., 283 ff. [184] Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613 (Chetham Society reprint). [185] Matthew Hopkins, Discovery of Witches, 1647, p. 3. [186] John Stearne, A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, 1648, p. 14. [187] Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, Chap. xxv. [188] Memorials, 1732, p. 163. [189] Page 450. [190] A Relation of the Diabolical Practices of above Twenty Wizards and Witches, 1697; Sadducismus Debellatus, 1698; A History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, 1877. A seventh committed suicide in prison. [191] An Account of the Tryals, Examination and Condemnation, of Elinor Shaw, and Mary Phillips [etc.], London [1705]; The Northamptonshire Witches. Being a true and faithful Account of the Births [etc.] of Elinor Shaw, and Mary Phillips, (The two notorious Witches) That were executed at Northampton on Saturday, March the 17th, 1705.... Communicated in a Letter last Post, from Mr. Ralph Davis, of Northampton ... London, 1705. The first tract is dated March 8, 1705; the second, March 18th, 1705. Both are signed “Ralph Davis.” I have used the reprints by Taylor & Son, Northampton, 1866. On this case, see [F. Marshall,] A Brief History of Witchcraft, with Especial Reference to Northamptonshire, Northampton, 1866, pp. 13-15, 16; Notes and Queries, 7th Series, IX, 117; Northamptonshire Notes and Queries II, 19; Eugene Teesdale, in Bygone Northamptonshire, edited by William Andrews, 1891, pp. 114-115; Gough, British Topography, 1780, II, 46. [192] See p. 48, above. This was the last conviction for witchcraft, and probably the last trial, in England. Mrs. Mary Hickes and her daughter are said by Gough (British Topography, 1780, I, 439, II, 254, note) to have been executed for witchcraft on July 28, 1716, at Huntingdon. Gough cites a contemporary pamphlet as authority. The genuineness of this case is doubted (see Notes and Queries, 1st Series, V, 514; 2d Series, V, 503-504), but Mr. F. A. Inderwick argues for its acceptance (Side-Lights on the Stuarts, 2d ed., 1891, pp. 177-180), and it has certainly never been disproved. The alleged executions at Northampton in 1712 are certainly based on a slip of the pen in Gough, British Topography, 1780, II, 52; the cases actually occurred in 1612, and an account of them may be found in a tract (The Witches of Northamptonshire) published in that year, and reprinted by Taylor & Son, Northampton, 1867. See also Thomas Sternberg, The Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, London, 1851, p. 152; F. Marshall, A Brief History of Witchcraft, Northampton, 1866, p. 16. [193] That is, Francis Bragge, who was also a clergyman, being Curate of Biggleswade according to Mr. W. B. Gerish (A Hertfordshire Witch, p. 8). [194] Commentaries, book iv, chap. 4, sec. 6 (4th ed., 1770, IV, 60-61); cf. Dr. Samuel A. Green, Groton in the Witchcraft Times, 1883, p. 29. In 1715 and 1716 there appeared, in London, A Compleat History of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft, in two volumes, which asserted the truth, and gave the particulars, of a long line of such phenomena, from the case of the Witches of Warboys (in 1592) to the Salem Witchcraft itself. The book was the occasion of Dr. Francis Hutchinson’s Historical Essay, published in 1718, and in a second edition in 1720. Richard Boulton, the author of the Compleat History, returned to the charge in 1722, in The Possibility and Reality of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft, Demonstrated. Or, a Vindication of a Compleat History of Magick, etc. The Compleat History came out anonymously, but Boulton, who describes himself as “sometime of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford,” acknowledges the authorship in his reply to Hutchinson. [195] The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in the year, 1699, being the Narrative of the Rev. J. Boys, Minister of that Parish. Printed from his Manuscript in the possession of the Publisher. London, A. Russell Smith, 1901 (50 copies only). [196] In Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700, pp. 3 ff. [197] An Answer of a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife, 1705; cf. also A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight, Edinburgh, 1820, pp. 79 ff. [198] Daily Journal, Jan. 15, 1731, as quoted in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1731, I, 29. [199] Daines Barrington points with pride to this early abolition of penalties:--“It is greatly to the honour of this country, to have repealed all the statutes against this supposed crime so long ago as the year 1736, when laws of the same sort continue in full force against these miserable and aged objects of compassion, in every other part of Europe” (Observations on the More Ancient Statutes, 3d ed., 1769, p. 367. on 20 Henr. VI.). [200] Gough, British Topography, 1780, I, 517. [201] Gentleman’s Magazine for 1751, XXI, 186, 198; Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 326 ff.; Gough, as above, I, 431. [202] Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 314, 322, 327. [203] See, for example, A. Löwenstimm, Aberglaube und Strafrecht, Berlin. 1897; W. Mannhardt, Die praktischen Folgen des Aberglaubens, 1878 (Deutsche Zeit- und Streit-Fragen, ed. by F. von Holstendorff, VII, nos. 97, 98); Wuttke, Der Deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, 2d ed., 1869; the chapter on Hexerei und Hexenverfolgung im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, in Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. by Heppe, II, 330 ff; cf. The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend, [II,] 1888, p. 394; North Riding Record Society, Publications, IV, 20, note; History of Witchcraft, sketched from the Popular Tales of the Peasantry of Nithsdale and Galloway (R. H. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, 1810, pp. 272 ff.); H. M. Doughty, Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1898, CLXIII, 394-395; Brand’s Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, III, 71, 95, 96,100 ff.; The Antiquary, XLI, 363; W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine, 1883; Miss Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, Chap. xiii; W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, 1879, Chap. vi; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1902; Notes and Queries, 1st Series, VII, 613, XI, 497-498; 3rd Series, II, 325; 4th Series, III, 238, VII, 53, VIII, 44; 5th Series, V, 126, 223, IX, 433, X, 205, XI, 66; 6th Series, I, 19, II, 145, IV, 510; 7th Series, IX, 425, XI, 43; 8th Series, IV, 186, 192, V, 226, VI, 6, VII, 246; 9th Series, II, 466, XII, 187; the journal, Folk-Lore, _passim_. [204] Cf. Allen Putnam, Witchcraft of New England explained by Modern Spiritualism, Boston, 1880. [205] “And by the way, to touch but a word or two of this matter, for that the horrible vsing of your poore subiects inforceth thereunto: It may please your Grace to vnderstand, that this kind of people, I meane witches, and sorcerers, within these few last yeeres, are maruellously increased within this your Graces realme. These eies haue seene most euident and manifest marks of their wickednesse. Your Graces subiects pine away euen vnto death, their collour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benummed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poore subiects most humble petition vnto your Highnesse is, that the lawes touching such malefactours, may be put in due execution. For the shole of them is great, their doings horrible, their malice intollerable, the examples most miserable. And I pray God, they neuer practise further, then vpon the subiect. But this only by the way, these be the scholers of Beelzebub the chiefe captaine of the Diuels” (Certaine Sermons, 1611, p. 204, in Workes of Jewell; cf. Parker Society edition, Part II, p. 1028). I cannot date this sermon. 1572, the year to which it is assigned by Dr. Nicholson (in his edition of Reginald Soot’s Discoverie, p. xxxii), is certainly wrong, for Jewel died in 1571. Strype associates it rather vaguely with the passage of the Witchcraft Act of 1563 (Annals of the Reformation, I, 8; cf. I, 295). [206] Legge, The Scottish Review, XVIII, 262. See also Newes from Scotland declaring the Damnable Life of Dr. Fian, 1591 (Roxburghe Club reprint). [207] Mather Papers, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VIII, 366-368. This was the same Joshua Moodey, it will be remembered, who afterwards assisted Philip English and his family to escape from jail in Boston, and thus saved them from being executed as guilty of witchcraft (Sibley, Harvard Graduates, I, 376-377.) Transcriber’s Note Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged. Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Unprinted punctuation and final stops missing at the end of abbreviations and sentences were added. Footnotes were moved to the end of the book. Spelling correction: “maner” changed to “manner” ... to detract in any manner ...