CHAPTER I.

EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND.


To various conspicuous and easily intelligible causes the witch and
the warlock, like the necromancer and the astrologer, owed their power
with the multitude. First, there was the eager desire which humanity
not unnaturally feels to tear aside the veil of Isis, and obtain some
knowledge of that Other World which is hidden so completely from it.
Next must be taken into account man's greed for temporal advantages,
his anxiety to direct the course of events to his personal benefit;
and, lastly, his malice against his fellows. Thus we see that the
influence enjoyed by the sorcerer and the magician had its origin in
the unlawful passions of humanity, in whose history the pages that
treat of witches and witchcraft are painful and humiliating reading.

To define the limit between the special functions of the magician and
the witch is somewhat difficult, more especially as the position of
the witch gradually decreased in reputation and importance. There is a
great gulf between the witch of Endor, or the witch of classical
antiquity, or the witch of the Norse Sagas, or the witch of the
Saxons, and the English or Scottish witch of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The former were surrounded with an atmosphere
of dread and mystery; the latter was the creature of vulgar and
commonplace traditions. In the early age of witchcraft, the witch,
like the magician, summoned spirits from the vasty deep, discovered
the hiding-places of concealed treasures, struck down men or beasts by
her spells, or covered the heavens with clouds and let loose the winds
of destruction and desolation. Both could blight the promise of the
harvest, baffle the plans of their enemies, or wither the health of
their victims. But while the magician was frequently a man of ability
and learning, and belonged to the cultured classes, the witch was
almost always a woman of the lower orders, ignorant and uneducated,
though occasionally ladies of high rank, and even ecclesiastics, have
been accused of practising witchcraft.

While witchcraft was a power in the land, the witch, or warlock, was
popularly supposed to be the direct instrument, and, indeed, the
bond-slave, of the Evil One, fulfilling his behests in virtue of a
compact, written in letters of blood, by which the witch made over her
soul to the Infernal Power in return for the enjoyment of supernatural
prerogatives for a fixed period. This treaty having been concluded,
the witch received a mark on some part of the body, which was
thenceforward insensible of pain--the stigma or devil's mark, by which
he might know his own again. A familiar imp or spirit was assigned to
her, generally in the form of an animal, and more particularly in that
of a black cat or dog. Round this general idea were gathered a number
of horrible and unclean conceptions, on which, happily, it will not be
necessary to enlarge. The devil, it was said, resorted to carnal
communication with his servants, being denominated _succubus_ when the
favourite was a female, and _incubus_ when a male was chosen. It was
alleged, too, that on certain occasions the devil, with his familiars,
and the great company of witches and warlocks whose souls he had
bought, assembled in the dead of night in some remote and savage
wilderness, to hold that frightful carnival of the Witches' Sabbat
which Goethe has depicted so powerfully in the second part of 'Faust.'
The human imagination has not invented, I think, any scene more
horrible, more degrading, or more bestial. We may suppose, however,
that it was not conceived by any single mind, or even people, or in
any single generation, but that it gradually took up additional
details from different nations, at different times, until it was
developed into the terrible whole presented by the mediæval writers.

This wild and awful revel was called the Sabbat because it took place
after midnight on Friday; that is, on the Jewish Sabbath--a curious
illustration of the popular antipathy against the Jews.

The spot where it was held never bloomed again with flower or herb;
the burning feet of the demons blighted it for ever.

Witch or warlock who failed to obey the summons of the master was
lashed by devils with rods made of scorpions or serpents, in
chastisement of his or her contumacy.

The guests repaired thither, according to the belief entertained in
France and England, upon broomsticks; but in Spain and Italy it was
thought that the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, conveyed them
on his back, which he contracted or elongated according to the number
he carried. The witch, when starting on her aerial journey, would not
quit her house by door or window; but astride on her broomstick made
her exit by the chimney. During her absence, to prevent the suspicions
of her neighbours from being aroused, an inferior demon assumed the
semblance of her person, and lay in her bed, pretending to be ill or
asleep.

A curious story may here be introduced. In April, 1611, a Provençal
curé, named Gaurifidi, was accused of sorcery before the Parliament of
Aix. In the course of trial much was said in proof of the power of the
demons. Several witnesses asserted that Gaurifidi, after rubbing
himself with a magic oil, repaired to the Sabbat, and afterwards
returned to his chamber down the chimney. One day, when this sort of
thing was exciting the imagination of the judges, an extraordinary
noise was heard in the chimney of the hall, terminating suddenly in
the apparition of a tall black man, who shook his head vigorously. The
judges, thinking the devil had come in person to the rescue of his
servant, took to their heels, with the exception of one Thorm, the
reporter, who was so hemmed in by his desk that he was unable to move.
Terror-stricken at the sight before him, with his body all of a
tremble, and his eyes starting from his head, he made repeated signs
of the cross, until the supposed fiend was equally alarmed, since he
could not understand the cause of the reporter's evident perturbation.
On recovering from his embarrassment he made himself known--he was a
sweep, who had been operating on a chimney on the roof above, but,
when ready to return, had mistaken the entrance, and thus unwillingly
intruded himself into the chamber of the Parliament.

* * * * *

The unclean ceremonies of the Witches' Sabbat were 'inaugurated' by
Satan, who, in his favourite assumption of a huge he-goat (a
suggestion, no doubt, from Biblical imagery), with one face in front,
and another between his haunches, took his place upon his throne.
After all present had done homage by kissing him on the posterior
face, he appointed a master of the ceremonies, and, attended by him,
made a personal examination of any guest to ascertain if he or she
bore the stigma, which indicated his right of ownership. Any who were
found without it received the mark at once from the master of the
ceremonies, while the devil bestowed on them a nickname. Thereafter
all began to dance and sing with wild extravagance--

'There is no rest to-night for anyone:
When one dance ends another is begun'--

until some neophyte arrived, and sought admission into the circle of
the initiated. Silence prevailed while the newcomer went through the
usual form of denying her salvation, spitting upon the Bible, kissing
the devil, and swearing obedience to him in all things. The dancing
then renewed its fury, and a hoarse chorus went up of--

'Alegremos, alegremos,
Que gente va tenemos!'

When spent with the violent exercise, they sat down, and, like the
witches in 'Macbeth,' related the evil things each had done since the
last Sabbat, those who had not been sufficiently active being
chastised by Satan himself until they were drenched in blood. A dance
of toads was the next entertainment. They sprang up out of the earth
by thousands, and danced on their hind-legs while Satan played on the
bagpipes or the trumpet, after which they solicited the witches to
reward them for their exertions by feeding them _with the flesh of
unbaptized babes_. Was there ever a more curious mixture of the
grotesque and the horrible? At a stamp from the devil's foot they
returned to the earth whence they came, and a banquet was served up,
the nature of which the reader may be left to imagine! Dancing was
afterwards resumed, while those who had no partiality for the pastime
found amusement in burlesquing the sacrament of baptism, the toads
being again summoned and sprinkled with holy water, while the devil
made the sign of the cross, and the witches cried out in chorus: 'In
nomine Patricâ, Aragueaco Patrica, agora, agora! Valentia, jurando
gome guito goustia!' that is, 'In the name of Patrick, Patrick of
Aragon now, now, all our ills are over!'

Sometimes the devil would cause the witches to strip themselves, and
dance before him in their nakedness, each with a cat tied round her
neck, and another suspended from her body like a tail. At cockcrow the
whole phantasmagoria vanished.

One cannot help wondering who first conceived the idea of these horrid
saturnalia. Did it spring from the diseased imagination of some
half-mad monk, brooding in the solitude of his silent cell, who
gathered up all these unclean and grim images and worked them into so
ghastly a picture? They are partly heathen, partly Christian; partly
classical, partly Teutonic--a strange and unwholesome compound, as
'thick and slab' as the hell-broth mixed by the hags on 'the blasted
heath'!

In these pages I am concerned only with our own 'tight little island,'
into which the superstition was most certainly introduced by the
northern invaders. It would derive strength and consistency from the
teaching of the Old Testament, which distinctly recognises the
existence of witchcraft. 'Let not a witch live!' is the command given
in Exodus (chapter xxii.); and similar threats against witches,
wizards and the like frequently occur in the books of Leviticus and
Deuteronomy. Says Sir William Blackstone: 'To deny the possibility,
nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly
to contradict the revealed Word of God in various passages of the Old
and New Testaments, and the thing itself is a truth to which every
nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, either by
example seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at
least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.' The
Church at a very early period admitted its existence, and fulminated
against all who practised it. The fourth canon of the Council of
Auxerre, in 525, stringently prohibited all resort to sorcerers,
diviners, augurs, and the like. A canon of the Council held at
Berkhampstead in 696 condemned to corporal punishment, or mulcted in a
fine, every person who made sacrifices to the evil spirits. Under the
name of _sortilegium_, the offence was treated eventually as a kind of
heresy, for which, on the first occasion, the offender, if penitent,
was punished by the Ecclesiastical Courts; but if there were no
abjuration, or a relapse after abjuration, she was handed over to the
secular power to be executed by authority of the writ _de heretico
comburendo_. At a later date, statutes against witchcraft were enacted
by Parliament, and the offence was both tried and punished by the
civil power. Such statutes were passed in the reigns of Henry VIII.,
Elizabeth, and James I. Legislation derives its chief support from
public opinion; and these statutes are a proof that the existence of
witchcraft was generally believed in. 'For centuries in this country,'
says Mr. Inderwick, 'strange as it may now appear, a denial of the
existence of such demoniacal agency was deemed equal to a confession
of atheism, and to a disbelief in the Holy Scriptures themselves. Not
only did Lord Chancellors, Lord Keepers, benches of Bishops, and
Parliament after Parliament attest the truth and the existence of
witchcraft, but Addison, writing as late as 1711, in the pages of the
_Spectator_, after describing himself as hardly pressed by the
arguments on both sides of this question, expresses his own belief
that there is, and has been, witchcraft in the land.' At the same
time, it is pleasant to remember that there have almost always been a
few minds, bolder and more enlightened than the rest, to protest
against a credulity which led to acts of the greatest inhumanity, and
fostered a grotesque and dangerous superstition.

It is in the twelfth century that we first obtain, in England, any
distinct indications of the nature of this superstition, and it is
then we first meet with the written compact between the devil and his
victim. The story of the old woman of Berkeley, with which Southey's
ballad has made everybody familiar, is related by William of
Malmesbury, on the authority of a friend who professed to have been an
eye-witness of the facts. When the devil, we read, announced to the
witch that the term of her compact had nearly expired, she summoned to
her presence the monks of the neighbouring monastery and her children,
confessed her sins, acknowledged her criminal compact, and displayed a
curious anxiety lest Satan should secure her body as well as her soul.
'Sew me in a stag's hide,' she said, 'and, placing me in a stone
coffin, shut me in with lead and iron. Load this with a heavy stone,
and fasten down the whole with three iron chains. Let fifty psalms be
sung by night, and fifty masses be said by day, to baffle the power of
the demons, and if you can thus protect my body for three nights, on
the fourth day you may safely bury it in the ground.' These
precautions, though religiously observed, proved ineffectual. On the
first night the monks bravely resisted the efforts of the fiends, who,
however, on the second night, renewed the attack with increased
vehemence, burst open the gates of the monastery, and rent asunder two
of the chains which held down the coffin. On the third night, so
terrible was the hurly-burly, that the monastery shook to its
foundations, and the terror-stricken priests paused, aghast, in the
midst of their ministrations. Then the doors flew apart, and into the
sacred place stalked a demon, who rose head and shoulders above his
fellows. Stopping at the coffin, he, in a terrible voice, commanded
the dead to rise. The woman answered that she was bound by the third
chain: whereupon the demon put his foot on the coffin, the chain
snapped like a thread, the coffin-lid fell off, the witch arose, and
was hurried to the church-door, where the demon, mounting a huge black
horse, swung his victim on to the crupper, and galloped away into the
darkness with the swiftness of an arrow, while her shrieks resounded
through the air.

There are many allusions in the old monastic chronicles which
illustrate the development of public opinion in reference to witches
and their craft. Thus, John of Salisbury describes the nocturnal
assemblies of the witches, the presence of Satan, the banquet, and the
punishment or reward of the guests according to the failure or
abundance of their zeal. William of Malmesbury tells us that on the
highroad to Rome dwelt a couple of beldams, of ill repute, who
enticed the weary traveller into their wretched hovel, and by their
incantations transformed him into a horse, a dog, or some other
animal--similar to the transformations we read of in Oriental
tales--and that this animal they sold to the first comer, in this way
picking up a tolerable livelihood. One day, a jongleur, or mountebank,
asked for a night's lodging, and when he disclosed his vocation to the
two hags, they informed him that they had an ass of remarkable
capacity, which, indeed, could do everything but speak, and that they
were willing to sell it. The sum asked was large, but the ass
displayed such wonderful intelligence that the jongleur gladly paid
it, and departed, taking with him the ass and a piece of advice from
the old women--not to let the ass go near running water. For some time
all went well, the ass became an immense attraction, and the jongleur
was growing passing rich, when, in one of his drunken fits, he allowed
the animal to escape. Running directly to the nearest stream, it
plunged in, and immediately resumed its original shape as a handsome
young man, who explained that he had been transformed by the spells of
the two crones.

The first trial for witchcraft in England occurred in the tenth year
of King John, when, as recorded in the 'Abbreviatio Placitorum,'
Agnes, wife of Ado the merchant, accused one Gideon of the crime; but
he proved his innocence by the ordeal of red-hot iron. The first trial
which has been reported with any degree of particularity belongs to
the year 1324. Some citizens of Coventry, it would appear, had
suffered severely at the hands of the prior, who had been supported in
his exactions by the two Despensers, Edward II.'s unworthy favourites.
In revenge, they plotted the death of the prior, the favourites, and
the King. For this purpose they sought the assistance of a famous
magician of Coventry, named Master John of Nottingham, and his man,
Robert Marshall of Leicester. The conspiracy was revealed by the said
Robert Marshall, probably because his pecuniary reward was
unsatisfactory, and he averred that John of Nottingham and himself,
having agreed to carry out the desire of the citizens, the latter, on
Sunday, March 13, brought an instalment of the stipulated fee,
together with seven pounds of wax and two yards of canvas; that with
this wax he and his master made seven images, representing
respectively the King (with his crown), the two Despensers, the prior,
his caterer, and his steward, and one Richard de Lowe--the last named
being introduced merely as a lay-figure on which to test the efficacy
of the charm.

The two wizards retired to an old ruined house at Shorteley Park,
about half a league from Coventry, where they remained at work for
several days, and about midnight on the Friday following Holy Cross
Day, the said Master John gave to the said Robert a sharp-pointed
leaden branch, and commanded him to insert it about two inches deep in
the forehead of the image representing Richard de Lowe, this being
intended as an experiment. It was done, and next morning Master John
sent his servant to Lowe's house to inquire after his condition, who
found him screaming and crying 'Harrow!' He had lost his memory, and
knew no one, and in this state he continued until dawn on the Sunday
before Ascension, when Master John withdrew the branch from the
forehead of the image and thrust it into the heart. There it remained
until the following Wednesday, when the unfortunate man expired. Such
was Robert Marshall's fable, as told before the judges; but apparently
it met with little credence, and the trial, after several
adjournments, fell to the ground.

Wonderful stories are told by the later chroniclers of a certain Eudo
de Stella, who had acquired great notoriety as a sorcerer. William of
Newbury says that his 'diabolical charms' collected a large company of
disciples, whom he carried with him from place to place, adding to
their number wherever he stopped. At times he encamped in the heart of
a wood, where sumptuous tables were suddenly spread with all kinds of
dainty dishes and fragrant wines, and every wish breathed by the
meanest guest was immediately fulfilled. Some of Eudo's followers,
however, confided to our authority that there was a strange want of
solidity in these magically-supplied viands, and that though they ate
of them continually, they were never satisfied. But it appears that
whoever once tasted of the sorcerer's meats, or received from him a
gift, thereby became enrolled among his followers. And the chronicler
supplies this irrefutable proof: A knight of his acquaintance paid a
visit to the wizard, and endeavoured to turn him from his evil
practices. When he departed, Eudo presented his squire with a handsome
hawk, which the knight, observing, advised him to cast away. Not so
the squire: he rejoiced in his high-mettled bird; but they had
scarcely got out of sight of the wizard's camp before the hawk's
talons gripped him more and more closely, and at last it flew away
with him, and he was never more heard of.

The trial of Dame Alicia Kyteler, or Le Poer, takes us across the
seas, but it furnishes too many interesting particulars to be entirely
ignored. Hutchinson informs us that, in 1324, Bishop de Ledrede, of
Ossory, in the course of a visitation of his diocese, came to learn
that, in the city of Kilkenny, there had long resided certain persons
addicted to various kinds of witchcraft; and that the chief offender
among them was a Dame Alicia Kyteler. As she was a woman of
considerable wealth, which might prove of great benefit to the Church,
the episcopal zeal blazed up strongly, and she and her accomplices
were ordered to be put upon their trial.

The accusation against them was divided into seven distinct heads:

First: That, in order to give effect to their sorcery, they were wont
altogether to deny the faith of Christ and of the Church for a year or
month, according as the object to be attained was greater or less, so
that during this longer or shorter period they believed in nothing
that the Church believed, and abstained from worshipping Christ's
body, from entering a church, from hearing Mass, and from
participating in the Sacrament. Second: That they propitiated the
demons with sacrifices of living animals, which they tore limb from
limb, and offered, by scattering them in cross-roads, to a certain
demon, Robert Artisson (_filius Artis_), who was 'one of the poorer
class of hell.' Third: That by their sorceries they sought responses
and oracles from demons. Fourth: That they used the ceremonies of the
Church in their nocturnal meetings, pronouncing, with lighted candles
of wax, sentence of excommunication even against the persons of their
own husbands, naming expressly every member, from the sole of the foot
to the top of the head, and at length extinguishing the candles with
the exclamation, 'Fi! fi! fi! Amen!' Fifth: That with the intestines
and other inner parts of cocks sacrificed to the demons, with 'certain
horrible worms,' various herbs, the nails of dead men, the hair,
brains, and clothes of children who had died unbaptized, and other
things too disgusting to mention, boiled in the skull of a certain
robber who had been beheaded, on a fire made of oak-sticks, they had
invented powders and ointments, and also candles of fat boiled in the
said skull, with certain charms, which things were to be instrumental
in exciting love or hatred, and in killing or torturing the bodies of
faithful Christians, and for various other unlawful purposes. Sixth:
That the sons and daughters of the four husbands of the same Dame
Alice had made their complaint to the Bishop, that she, by such
sorcery, had procured the death of her husbands, and had so beguiled
and infatuated them, that they had given all their property to her and
her son [by her first husband, William Outlawe], to the perpetual
impoverishment of their own sons and heirs: insomuch that her present
[and fourth] husband, Sir John Le Poer, was reduced to a most
miserable condition of body by her ointments, powders, and other
magical preparations; but, being warned by her maidservant, he had
forcibly taken from his wife the keys of her house, in which he found
a bag filled with the 'detestable' articles above mentioned, which he
had sent to the Bishop. Seventh: That there existed an unholy
connection between the said Lady Alice and the demon called Robert
Artisson, who sometimes appeared to her in the form of a cat,
sometimes in that of a black shaggy dog, and at others in the form of
a black man, with two tall companions as black as himself, each
carrying in his hand a rod of iron. Some of the old chroniclers
embroider upon this charge the fanciful details that her offering to
the demon was nine red cocks' and nine peacocks' eyes, which were paid
on a certain stone bridge at a cross-road; that she had a magical
ointment,[40] which she rubbed upon a coulter or plough handle, in
order that the said coulter might carry her and her companions
whithersoever they wished to go; that in her house was found a
consecrated wafer, with the devil's name written upon it; and that,
sweeping the streets of Kilkenny between complin and twilight, she
raked up all the ordure towards the doors of her son, William Outlawe,
saying to herself:

'To the house of William my son,
Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.'

The lady, rejoicing in powerful friends and advisers, defied the
Bishop and all his works. She was excommunicated, and her son summoned
to appear before the Bishop for the offence of harbouring and
concealing her; but Dame Alice's friends retaliated by throwing the
Bishop into prison for several days. He revenged himself by placing
the whole diocese under an interdict, and again summoning William
Outlawe to appear on a certain day; but before the day arrived, he in
his turn was cited before the Lord Justice, to answer for having
imposed an interdict on his diocese, and to defend himself against
accusations submitted by the seneschal. The Bishop pleaded that it was
unsafe for him to travel; but the plea was not allowed, and, to save
himself from further molestation, he recalled the interdict.

The quarrel was not yet fought out. On the Monday following the octave
of Easter, the seneschal, Arnold de la Poer, held his judicial court
in the Assize Hall at Kilkenny. Thither repaired the Bishop, and,
though refused admission, he forced his way in, robed in full
pontificals, carrying in his hand the Host in pyx of gold, and
attended by a numerous train of friars and clergy. But he was received
with a storm of insults and reproaches, which compelled him to retire.
Upon his repeated protests, however, and at the intercession of some
influential personages, his return was permitted. Being ordered to
take his stand at the criminal's bar, he exclaimed that Christ had
never been treated so before, since He stood at the bar before Pontius
Pilate; and he loudly called upon the seneschal to order the arrest of
the persons accused of sorcery, and their deliverance into his hands.
When the seneschal abruptly refused, he opened the book of the
decretals, and saith, 'You, Sir Arnold, are a knight, and instructed
in letters, and that you may not have the excuse of ignorance, we are
prepared to prove by these decretals that you and your officials are
bound to obey our order in this matter, under heavy penalties.'

'Go to the church with your decretals,' replied the seneschal, 'and
preach there, for none of us here will listen to you.'

In the Bishop's character there must have been a fine strain of
perseverance, for all these rebuffs failed to baffle him, and he
actually succeeded, after a succession of disappointments and a
constant renewal of difficulties, in obtaining permission to bring the
alleged offenders to trial. Most of them suffered imprisonment; but
Dame Alice escaped him, being secretly conveyed to England. Of all
concerned in the affair, only one was punished: Petronella of Meath,
who was selected as a scapegoat, probably because she had neither
friends nor means of defence.

By order of the Bishop she was six times flogged, after which the poor
tortured victim made a confession, in which she declared not only her
own guilt, but that of everybody against whom the Bishop had
proceeded. She affirmed that in all Britain, nay, indeed, in the whole
world, was no one more skilled in magical practices than Dame Alice
Kyteler. She was brought to admit the truth--though in her heart she
must have known its absolute falsehood[41]--of the episcopal
indictment, and pretended that she had been present at the sacrifices
to the Evil One--that she had assisted in making the unguents with the
unsavoury materials already mentioned, and that with these unguents
different effects were produced upon different persons--the faces of
certain ladies, for instance, being made to appear horned like goats;
that she had been present at the nocturnal revelries, and, with her
mistress's assistance, had frequently pronounced sentence of
excommunication against her own husband, with all due magical rites;
that she had attended Dame Alice in her assignations with the demon,
Robert Artisson, and had seen acts of an immorality so foul that I
dare not allude to it pass between them. Having been coerced and
tortured into this amazingly wild and fictitious confession, the poor
woman was declared guilty, sentenced, and burned alive, the first
victim of the witchcraft delusion in Ireland.

* * * * *

It is worthy of observation that the mind of the public was roused to
a much stronger feeling of hostility against witchcraft than against
magic. Alchemists, astrologers, fortune-tellers, diviners, and the
like, might incur suspicion, and sometimes punishment; but, on the
whole, they were treated with tolerance, and even with distinction.
For this inequality of treatment two or three reasons suggest
themselves. In the crime of witchcraft the central feature was the
compact with the demon, and it was natural that men should resent an
act which entailed the eternal loss of the soul. Again, witchcraft,
much more frequently than magic, was the instrument of personal
ill-feeling, and was more generally directed against the lower
classes. The magician seldom used his power except when liberally paid
by an employer; the witch, it was thought, exercised her skill for the
gratification of her own malice. However this may be, an imputation of
witchcraft became, in the fifteenth century, a formidable affair,
ensuring the death or ruin of the unfortunate individual against whom
it was made. There was no little difficulty in defending one's self;
and in truth, once made, it clung to its victim like a Nessus's shirt,
and with a result as deadly.

Its value as a political 'move' was shown in the persecution of the
Knights Templars, and, in our own history, in Cardinal Beaufort's
intrigue against Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who governed England as
Protector during the minority of Henry VI.

The Cardinal struck at the Duke through his beautiful wife, Eleanor
Cobham. In July, 1441, two ecclesiastics, Roger Bolingbroke, and
Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen's Chapel, were arrested on a
charge of high treason; 'for it was said that the said Master Roger
should labour to consume the King's person by way of necromancy; and
that the said Master Thomas should say masses upon certain instruments
with the which the said Master Roger should use his said craft of
necromancy.' Bolingbroke was a scholar, an adept in natural science,
and an ardent student of astronomy: William of Worcester describes him
as one of the most famous clerks of the world. One Sunday, after
having undergone rigorous examination, he was conveyed to St. Paul's
Cross, where he was mounted 'on a high stage above all men's heads in
Paul's Churchyard, whiles the sermon endured, holding a sword in his
right hand and a sceptre in his left, arrayed in a marvellous array,
wherein he was wont to sit when he wrought his necromancy.'

The Duchess of Gloucester, meanwhile, perceiving that her ruin was
intended, fled to sanctuary at Westminster. Before the King's Council
Bolingbroke was brought to confess that he had plied his magical trade
at the Duchess's instigation, 'to know what should fall of her, and
to what estate she should come.' In other words, he had cast her
horoscope, a proceeding common enough in those days, and one which had
no treasonable complexion. The Cardinal's party, however, seized upon
Bolingbroke's confession, and made such use of it that the unfortunate
lady was cited to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal composed of
Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of
Winchester, Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, and Ayscough, Bishop of
Salisbury, on July 2, 'to answer to divers articles of necromancy, of
witchcraft or sorcery, of heresy, and of treason.' Bolingbroke was
brought forward as a witness, and repeated that the Duchess 'first
stirred him to labour in his necromancy.'

After this, he and Southwell were indicted as principals of treason,
and the Duchess as accessory, though, if his story were true, their
positions should have been reversed. At the same time, a woman named
Margery Goodman, and known as the 'Witch of Eye,' was burned at
Smithfield because in former days she had given potions and philtres
to Eleanor Cobham, to enable her to secure the Duke of Gloucester's
affections. Roger Bolingbroke was hung, drawn, and quartered,
according to the barbarous custom of the age; Southwell escaped a
similar fate by dying in the Tower before the day appointed for his
trial. The charge of high treason brought against them rested entirely
on the allegation that, at the Duchess's request, they had made a
waxen image to resemble the King, and had placed it before a fire,
that, as it gradually melted, so might the King gradually languish
away and die. As for the Duchess, she was sentenced to do penance,
which she fulfilled 'right meekly, so that the more part of the people
had her in great compassion,' on Monday, November 13, 1441, walking
barefoot, with a lighted taper in her hand, from Temple Bar to St.
Paul's, where she offered the taper at the high altar. She repeated
the penance on the Wednesday and Friday following, walking to St.
Paul's by different routes, and on each occasion was accompanied by
the Lord Mayor, the sheriffs, and the various guilds, and by a
multitude of people, whom the repute of her beauty and her sorrows had
attracted, so that what was intended for a humiliation became really a
triumph. She was afterwards imprisoned in Chester Castle, and thence
transferred to the Isle of Man.

* * * * *

The charge of sorcery which Richard III. brought against Lord
Hastings, accusing him of having wasted his left arm, though from his
birth it had been fleshless, dry, and withered, is made the basis of
an effective scene in Shakespeare's 'Richard III.' His brother's
widow, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, was included in the charge, and Jane
Shore was named as her accomplice. This frail beauty was brought
before the Council, and accused of having 'endeavoured the ruin and
destruction of the Protector in several ways,' and particularly 'by
witchcraft had decayed his body, and with the Lord Hastings had
contrived to assassinate him.' The indictment, however, was not
sustained, and her offence was reduced to that of lewd living.
Whereupon she was handed over to the Bishop of London to do public
penance for her sin on Sunday morning in St. Paul's Cathedral church.
Clothed in a white sheet, with a wax taper in her hand, and a cross
borne before her, she was led in procession from the episcopal palace
to the cathedral, where she made open confession of her fault. The
moral effect of this exhibition seems to have been considerably marred
by the beauty of the penitent, which produced upon the multitude an
impression similar to that which the bared bosom of Phryne produced
upon her judges in the days of old.

In 1480 Pope Innocent VIII. issued a Bull enjoining the detection,
trial, and punishment (by burning) of witches. This was the first
formal recognition of witchcraft by the head of the Church. In England
the first Act of Parliament levelled at it was passed in 1541. Ten
years later two more statutes were enacted, one relating to false
prophecies, and the other to conjuration, witchcraft and sorcery. But
in no one of these was witchcraft condemned _qua_ witchcraft; they
were directed against those who, by means of spells, incantations, or
compacts with the devil, threatened the lives and properties of their
neighbours. When, in 1561, Sir Edward Waldegrave, one of Mary Stuart's
councillors, was arrested by order of Secretary Cecil as 'a
mass-monger,' the Bishop of London, to whom he was remitted, felt no
disposition to inflict a heavy penalty for hearing or saying of mass;
but, on inquiry, he discovered that the officiating priest had been
concerned in concocting 'a love-philtre,' and he then decided that
sorcery would afford a safer ground for process. He applied,
therefore, to Chief Justice Catlin, to learn what might be the law in
such cases, and was astonished when he was told that no legal
provision had been made for them. Previously they came before the
Church Courts; but these had been deprived of their powers by the
Reformation, and the only precedent he could find for moving in the
matter belonged to the reign of Edward III., and was thus entered on
the roll:

'Ung homme fut prinse en Southwark avec ung teste et ung
visaige dung homme morte avec ung lyvre de sorcerie en son
male et fut amesné en banke du Roy devant Knyvet Justice,
mais nulle indictment fut vers lui, por qui les clerkes luy
fierement jurement que jamais ne feroit sorcerie en après, et
fut delyvon del prison, et le teste et les lyvres furent
arses a Totehyll a les costages du prisonnier.' (That is: A
man was taken in Southwark, with a dead man's skull and a
book of sorcery in his wallet, and was brought up at the
King's Bench before Knyvet Justice; but no indictment was
laid against him, for that the clerks made him swear he would
meddle no more with sorcery, and the head and the books were
burnt at Tothill Fields at the prisoner's charge.)

But in the following year Parliament passed an Act which defined
witchcraft as a capital crime, whether it was or was not exerted to
the injury of the lives, limbs, and possessions of the lieges.
Thenceforward the persecution of witches took its place among English
institutions. During the latter years of Elizabeth's reign several
instances occurred. Thus, on July 25, 1589, three witches were burnt
at Chelmsford. The popular mind was gradually familiarized with the
idea of witchcraft, and led to concentrate its attention on the
individual marks, or characteristics, which were supposed to indicate
its professors. Even among the higher classes a belief in its
existence became very general, and it is startling to find a man like
the learned and pious Bishop Jewell, in a sermon before Queen
Elizabeth, saying: 'It may please your Grace to understand that
witches and sorcerers within these last four years are marvellously
increased within this your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine
away even unto the death; their colour fadeth; their flesh rotteth;
their speech is benumbed; their senses are bereft! I pray God they may
never practise further than upon the subject!' (1598).

* * * * *

The witches in 'Macbeth'--those weird sisters who met at midnight upon
the blasted heath, and in their caldron brewed so deadly a
'hell-broth'--partake of the dignity of the poet's genius, and belong
to the vast ideal world of his imagination. No such midnight hags
crossed the paths of ordinary mortals. The Elizabethan witch, who
scared her neighbours in town and village, and flourished on their
combined ignorance and superstition, appears, however, in 'The Merry
Wives of Windsor,' where Master Ford describes 'the fat woman of
Brentford' as 'a witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!' He adds:
'Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We
are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the
profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the
figure; and such daubery as this is beyond our element.' Most of
Master Ford's contemporaries, I fear, were, in this matter, 'simple
men.' Even persons of rank and learning, of position and refinement,
were as credulous as their poorer, more ignorant, and more vulgar
neighbours; were just as ready to believe that an untaught village
crone had made a compact with the devil, and bartered her soul for the
right of straddling across a broom or changing herself into a black
cat!

* * * * *

Near Warboise, in Huntingdonshire, in 1593, lived two gentlemen of
good estate--Mr. Throgmorton and Sir Samuel Cromwell. The former had
five daughters, of whom the eldest, Joan, was possessed with a lively
imagination, which busied itself constantly with ghosts and witches.
On one occasion, when she passed the cottage of an old and infirm
woman, known as Mother Samuel, the good dame, with a black cap on her
head, was sitting at her door knitting. Mistress Joan exclaimed that
she was a witch, hurried home, went into convulsions, and declared
that Mother Samuel had bewitched her. In due course, her sisters
followed her example, and they too laid the blame of their fits on
Mother Samuel. The parents, not less infatuated than the children,
lent ready ears to their wild tales, and carried them to Lady
Cromwell, who, as a friend of Mrs. Throgmorton, took the matter up
right earnestly, and resolved that the supposed witch should be put to
the ordeal. Sir Samuel was by no means unwilling; and the children,
encouraged by this prompt credulity, let loose their fertile
inventions. They declared that Mother Samuel sent a legion of evil
spirits to torment them incessantly. Strange to say, these spirits had
made known their names, which, though grotesque, had nothing of a
demoniac character about them--'First Smack,' 'Second Smack,' 'Third
Smack,' 'Blue,' 'Catch,' 'Hardname,' and 'Pluck'--names invented, of
course, by the young people themselves.

At length the aggrieved Throgmorton, summoning all his courage,
repaired to Mother Samuel's humble residence, seized upon the unhappy
old crone, and dragged her into his own grounds, where Lady Cromwell
and Mrs. Throgmorton and her children thrust long pins into her body
to see if they could draw blood. With unmeasured violence, Lady
Cromwell tore the old woman's cap from her head, and plucked out a
handful of her gray hair, which she gave to Mrs. Throgmorton to burn,
as a charm that would protect her from all further evil practices.
Smarting under these injuries, the poor old woman, in a moment of
passion, invoked a curse upon her torturers--a curse afterwards
remembered against her, though at the time she was allowed to depart.
For more than a year her life was made miserable by the incessant
persecution inflicted upon her by the two hostile families, who, on
their part, declared that her demons brought upon them all kinds of
physical ills, prevented their ewes and cows from bearing, and turned
the milk sour in the dairy-pans. It so happened that Lady Cromwell was
seized with a sudden illness, of which she died, and though some
fifteen months had elapsed since the utterance of the curse, on poor
Mother Samuel was placed the responsibility. Sir Samuel Cromwell,
therefore, felt called upon to punish her for her ill-doing.

By this time the old woman, partly through listening to the incessant
repetition of the charges against her, and partly, perhaps, from a
weak delight in the notoriety she had attained, had come to believe,
or to think she believed, that she was really the witch everybody
declared her to be--just as a young versifier is sometimes deluded
into a conviction of his poetic genius through unwisely crediting the
eulogies of an admiring circle of friends and relatives. On one
occasion, she was forcibly conveyed into Mrs. Throgmorton's house when
Joan was in one of her frequently-recurring fits, and ordered to
exorcise the demon that was troubling the maid, with the formula: 'As
I am a witch, and the causer of Lady Cromwell's death, I charge thee,
fiend, to come out of her!' The poor creature did as she was told, and
confessed, besides, that her husband and her daughter were her
associates in witchcraft, and that all three had sold their souls to
the devil. On this confession the whole family were arrested, and sent
to Huntingdon Gaol. Soon afterwards they were tried before Mr. Justice
Fenner, and put to the torture.

In her agony the old woman confessed anything that was required of
her--she was a witch, she had bewitched the Throgmortons, she had
caused the death of Lady Cromwell. Her husband and her daughter,
stronger-minded, resolutely asserted their innocence. Ignorance,
however, would not be denied its victims; all three were sentenced to
be hanged, and to have their bodies burned. The daughter, who was
young and comely, was regarded compassionately by many persons, and
advised to gain at least a respite by pleading pregnancy. She
indignantly refused to sacrifice her good name. They might falsely
call her a witch, she exclaimed, but they should not be able to say
that she had acknowledged herself to be a harlot. Her old mother,
however, caught at the idea, and openly asserted that she was with
child, the court breaking out into loud laughter, in which she
fatuously joined. The three victims suffered on April 7, 1595.

Out of the confiscated property of the Samuels, Sir Samuel Cromwell,
as lord of the manor, received a sum of £40, which he converted into
an annual rent-charge of 40s. for the endowment of an annual sermon or
lecture on the iniquity of witchcraft, to be delivered by a D.D. or
B.D. of Queen's College, Cambridge. This strange memorial of a
shameful and ignorant superstition was discontinued early in the
eighteenth century.

* * * * *

In 1594, Ferdinando, Earl of Derby, died in and from the firm
conviction that he was mortally bewitched, though he had no knowledge
of the person who had so bewitched him.

* * * * *

About the same time there lived in an obscure part of Lancashire, not
far from Pendle, two families of the names of Dundike and Chattox
respectively, who both pretended to enjoy supernatural privileges,
and were therefore as bitterly antagonistic as if they had belonged to
different political factions. Their neighbours, however, seem to have
believed in the superior claims of the head of the Dundike family,
Mother Dundike, who pretended that she had enjoyed her unhallowed
powers for half a century. The year in which occurred the incidents I
am about to describe was, so to speak, her jubilee.

Mother Dundike must have been a woman of lively imagination, if we may
form conclusions from her graphic account of the circumstances
attending her initiation into the great army of 'the devil's own.' One
day, when returning from a begging expedition, she was accosted by a
boy, dressed in a parti-coloured garment of black and white, who
proved to be a demon, or evil spirit, and promised her that, in return
for the gift of her soul, she should have anything and everything she
desired. On inquiring his name, she was told it was Tib; and here I
may note that the 'princes and potentates' of the nether world seem to
have had a great predilection for monosyllabic names, and names of a
vulgar and commonplace character. The upshot of the conversation
between Tib and the woman was the surrender of her soul on the liberal
conditions promised, and for the next five or six years the said devil
frequently appeared unto her 'about daylight-gate' (near evening), and
asked what she would have or do. With wonderful unselfishness she
replied, 'Nothing.' Towards the end of the sixth year, on a quiet
Sabbath morning, while she lay asleep, Tib came in the shape of a
brown dog, forced himself to her knee, and, as she wore no other
garment than a smock, succeeded in drawing blood. Awaking suddenly,
she exclaimed, 'Jesu, save my child!' but had not the power to say,
'Jesu, save _me_!' Whereupon the brown dog vanished, and for a space
of eight weeks she was 'almost stark mad.'

The matter-of-fact style which distinguishes Mother Dundike's
confession may also be traced in the statements of her children and
grandchildren, who all speak as if witchcraft were an everyday
reality, and as if evil spirits in various common disguises went to
and fro in the land with edifying regularity. Let us turn to the
evidence, if such it may be called, of Alison Device, a girl of about
thirteen or fourteen years of age. Incriminating her grandmother
without scruple, she declared that when they were on the tramp, the
old woman frequently persuaded her to allow a devil or 'familiar' to
suck at some part of her body, after which she might have and do what
she would--though, strange to say, neither she nor anyone else ever
availed themselves of their powers to improve their material
condition, but lingered on in poverty and privation. James Device, one
of Mother Dundike's grandsons, said that on Shrove Tuesday she bade
him go to church to receive the sacrament--not, however, to eat the
consecrated bread, but to bring it away, and deliver it to 'such a
Thing' as should meet him on his way homeward. But he disobeyed the
injunction, and ate the sacred bread. On his way home, when about
fifty yards from the church, he was met by a 'Thing in the shape of a
hare,' which asked him whether he had brought the bread according to
his grandmother's directions. He answered that he had not; and
therefore the Thing threatened to rend him in pieces, but he got rid
of it by calling upon God.

Some few days later, hard by the new church in Pendle, a Thing
appeared to him like to a brown dog, asked him for his soul, and
promised in return that he should be avenged on his enemies. The
virtuous youth replied, somewhat equivocatingly, that his soul was not
his to give, but belonged to his Saviour Jesus Christ; as much as was
his to give, however, he was contented to dispose of. Two or three
days later James Device had occasion to go to Cave Hall, where a Mrs.
Towneley angrily accused him of having stolen some of her turf, and
drove him from her door with violence. When the devil next
appeared--this time like a _black_ dog--he found James Device in the
right temper for a deed of wickedness. He was instructed to make an
image of clay like Mrs. Towneley; which he did, and dried it the same
night by the fire, and daily for a week crumbled away the said image,
and two days after it was all gone Mrs. Towneley died! In the
following Lent, one John Duckworth, of the Launde, promised him an old
shirt; but when young Device went to his house for the gift, he was
denied, and sent away with contumely. The spirit 'Dandy' then appeared
to him, and exclaimed: 'Thou didst touch the man Duckworth,' which he,
James Device, denied; but the spirit persisted: 'Yes; thou _didst_
touch him, and therefore he is in my power.' Device then agreed with
the demon that the said Duckworth should meet with the same fate as
Mrs. Towneley, and in the following week he died.

* * * * *

It is a curious fact that the old woman Chattox, the head of the rival
faction of practitioners in witchcraft, accused Mother Dundike of
having inveigled her into the ranks of the devil's servants. This was
about 1597 or 1598. To Mrs. Chattox the Evil One appeared--as he has
appeared to too many of her sex--in the shape of a man. Time,
midnight; place, Elizabeth Dundike's tumble-down cottage. He asked, as
usual, for her soul, which she at first refused, but afterwards, at
Mother Dundike's advice and solicitation, agreed to part with.
'Whereupon the said wicked spirit then said unto her, that he must
have one part of her body for him to suck upon; the which she denied
then to grant unto him; and withal asked him, what part of her body he
would have for that use; who said, he would have a place of her right
side, near to her ribs, for him to suck upon; whereunto she assented.
And she further said that, at the same time, there was a Thing in the
likeness of a spotted bitch, that came with the said spirit unto the
said Dundike, which did then speak unto her in Anne Chattox's hearing,
and said, that she should have gold, silver, and worldly wealth at her
will; and at the same time she saith there was victuals, viz., flesh,
butter, cheese, bread, and drink, and bid them eat enough. And after
their eating, the devil called Fancy, and the other spirit calling
himself Tib carried the remnant away. And she saith, that although
they did eat, they were never the fuller nor better for the same; and
that at their said banquet the said spirits gave them light to see
what they did, although they had neither fire nor candle-light; and
that there be both she-spirits and (he-)devils.'

In a later chapter I shall have occasion to refer to the confessions
of the various persons implicated in this 'Great Oyer' of witchcraft.
What comes out very strongly in them is the hostility which existed
between the Chattoxes and the Dundikes, and their respective
adherents. In Pendle Forest there were evidently two distinct parties,
one of which sought the favour and sustained the pretensions of Mother
Dundike, the other being not less steadfast in allegiance to Mother
Chattox. As to these two beldams, it is clear enough that they
encouraged the popular credulity, resorted to many ingenious
expedients for the purpose of supporting their influence, and
unscrupulously employed that influence in furtherance of their
personal aims. They knowingly played at a sham game of commerce with
the devil, and enjoyed the fear and awe with which their neighbours
looked up to them. It flattered their vanity; and perhaps they played
the game so long as to deceive themselves. 'Human passions are always
to a certain degree infectious. Perceiving the hatred of their
neighbours, they began to think that they were worthy objects of
detestation and terror, that their imprecations had a real effect,
and their curses killed. The brown horrors of the forest were
favourable to visions, and they sometimes almost believed that they
met the foe of mankind in the night.' To the delusions of the
imagination, especially when suggested by pride and vanity, there are
no means of putting a limit; and it is quite possible that in time
these women gave credence to their own absurd inventions, and saw a
demon or familiar spirit in every hare or black or brown dog that
accidentally crossed their path.

For awhile the witches created a reign of terror in the forest. But
the interlacing animosities which gradually sprang up between its
inhabitants were the fertile source of so much disorder that, at
length, a county magistrate of more than ordinary energy, Roger
Nowell, Esq., described as a very honest and religious gentleman,
conceived the idea that, by suppressing them, he should do the State
good service. Accordingly he ordered the arrest of Dundike and
Chattox, Alison Device, and Anne Redfern, and each, in the hope of
saving her life, having made a full confession, he committed them to
Lancaster Castle, on April 2, 1612, to take their trials at the next
assizes.

No attempt was made, however, to search Malkin Tower. This lonely ruin
was regarded with superstitious dread by the peasantry, who durst
never approach it, on account of the strange unearthly noises and the
weird creatures that haunted its wild recesses. James Device, when
examined afterwards by Nowell, deposed that about a month before his
arrest, as he was going towards his mother's house in the twilight, he
met a brown dog coming from it, and, of course, a brown dog was the
disguise of an evil spirit. About two or three nights after, he heard
a great number of children shrieking and crying pitifully in the same
uncanny neighbourhood; and at a later date his ears were shocked by a
loud yelling, 'like unto a great number of cats.' We have heard the
same sounds ourselves, at night, in places which did not profess to be
haunted! It is very possible that Dame Dundike, who was obviously a
crafty old woman, with much knowledge of human nature, had something
to do with these noises and appearances, for it was to her interest to
maintain the eerie reputation of the Tower, and prevent the intrusion
of inquisitive visitors. With all her little secrets, it was natural
enough she should say, '_Procul este, profani_,' while she would
necessarily seize every opportunity of extending and strengthening her
authority.

It was the general belief that the Malkin Tower was the place where
the witches annually kept their Sabbath on Good Friday, and in 1612,
after Dame Dundike's arrest, they met there as usual, in exceptionally
large numbers, and, after the usual feasting, conferred together on
'the situation'--to use a slang phrase of the present day. Elizabeth
Device presided, and asked their advice as to the best method of
obtaining her mother's release. There must have been some daring
spirits among those old women; for it was proposed--so runs the
record--to kill Lovel, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle, and another
man of the name of Lister, accomplish an informal 'gaol-delivery,' and
blow up the prison! Even with the help of their familiars, they would
have found this a difficult and dangerous enterprise, and we do not
wonder that the proposal met with general disfavour.

Seldom, if ever, do conspirators meet without a traitor in their
midst; and on this occasion there was a traitor in Malkin Tower in the
person of Janet Device, the youngest daughter of Alison Device, and
grand-daughter of the unfortunate old woman who was lying ill and weak
in Lancaster Gaol. A girl of only nine years of age, she was an
experienced liar and thoroughly unscrupulous; and having been bribed
by Justice Nowell, she informed against the persons present at this
meeting, and secured their arrest. The number of prisoners at
Lancaster was increased to twelve, among whom were Elizabeth Device,
her son James, and Alice Nutter, of Rough Lea, a lady of good family
and fair estate. There is good reason to believe that the last-named
was in no way implicated in the doings of the so-called witches, but
that she was introduced by Janet Device to gratify the greed of some
of her relatives--who, in the event of her death, would inherit her
property--and the ill-feeling of Justice Nowell, whom she had worsted
in a dispute about the boundary of their respective lands. The charges
against her were trivial, and amounted to no more than that she had
been present at the Malkin Tower convention, and had joined with
Mother Dundike and Elizabeth Device in bewitching to death an old man
named Mitton. The only witnesses against her were Janet and Elizabeth
Device, neither of whom was worthy of credence.

Blind old Mother Dundike escaped the terrible penalty of an
unrighteous law by dying in prison before the day of trial. But
justice must have been well satisfied with its tale of victims.
Foremost among them was Mother Chattox, the head of the anti-Dundike
faction--'a very old, withered, spent, and decrepit creature,' whose
sight was almost gone, and whose lips chattered with the meaningless
babble of senility. When judgment was pronounced upon her, she uttered
a wild, incoherent prayer for Divine mercy, and besought the judge to
have pity upon Anne Redfern, her daughter. The next person for trial
was Elizabeth Device, who is described as having been branded 'with a
preposterous mark in nature, even from her birth, which was her left
eye standing lower than the other; the one looking down, the other
looking up; so strangely deformed that the best that were present in
that honourable assembly and great audience did affirm they had not
often seen the like.' When this woman discovered that the principal
witness against her was her own child, she broke out into such a storm
of curses and reproaches that the proceedings came to a sudden stop,
and she had to be removed from the court before her daughter could
summon up courage to repeat the fictions she had learned or concocted.
The woman was, of course, found guilty, as were also James and Alison
Device, Alice Nutter, Anne Redfern, Katherine Hewit, John and Jane
Balcock, all of Pendle, and Isabel Roby, of Windle, most of whom
strenuously asserted their innocence to the last. On August 13, the
day after their trial, they were burnt 'at the common place of
execution, near to Lancaster'--the unhappy victims of the ignorance,
superstition, and barbarity of the age.

Janet Device, as King's evidence, obtained a pardon, though she
acknowledged to have taken part in the practices of her parents, and
confessed to having learned from her mother two prayers, one to cure
the bewitched, and the other to get drink. The former, which is
obviously a _pasticcio_ of the old Roman Catholic hymns and
traditional rhymes, runs as follows:

'Upon Good Friday, I will fast while I may
Untill 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?
Heaven's door key.
Open, open, Heaven's door keys!
Stark, stark, hell door.
Let Criznen child
Goe to its mother mild;
What is yonder that crests a light so farrndly?
Thine owne deare Sonne that's nailed to the Tree.
He is naild sore by the heart and hand,
And holy harne panne.
Well is that man
That Fryday spell can,
His child to learne;
A crosse of blew and another of red,
As good Lord was to the Roode.
Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe
Upon the ground of holy weepe;
Good Lord came walking by.
Sleep'st thou, wak'st thou, Gabriel?
No, Lord, I am sted with sticks and stake
That I can neither sleepe nor wake:
Rise up, Gabriel, and goe with me,
The stick nor the stake shall never dure thee.
Sweet Jesus, our Lord. Amen!'

The other prayer consisted only of the Latin phrase: 'Crucifixus hoc
signum vitam æternam. Amen.'[42]

FOOTNOTES:

[40] So in Duclerq's 'Memoires' ('Collect. du Panthéon'), p. 141, we
read of a case at Arras, in which the sorcerers were accused of using
such an ointment: 'D'ung oignement que le diable leur avoit baillé,
ils oindoient une vergue de bois bien petite, et leurs palmes et leurs
mains, puis mectoient celle virguelte entre leurs jambes, et tantost
ils s'en volvient où ils voullvient estre, purdesseures bonnes villes,
bois et cams; et les portoit le diable au lieu où ils debvoient faire
leur assemblée.'

[41] That is, of sacrificing to the Evil One, of meeting the demon
Robert Artisson, and so on; though it is quite possible that strange
unguents were made and administered to different persons, and that
Dame Alice and her companions played at being sorcerers. Some of the
so-called witches, as we shall see, encouraged the deception on
account of the influence it gave them.

[42] Thomas Pott's 'Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of
Lancashire' (1615), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1845.