WITCHCRAFT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Sir Roger Twysden, with all his learning, could not rise above the credulity of his age; and was, to the last, as firm a believer in palmistry and witchcraft, and all the illusions of magic, as the generality of his cotemporaries. His commonplace-books furnish numerous instances of the childlike simplicity with which he gave credence to any tale of superstition for which the slightest shadow of authenticity could be discovered.
The following amusing instance of this almost infantine credulity, I have extracted from one of his note-books; merely premising that his wife Isabella was daughter of Sir Nicholas Saunders, the narrator of the tale:—
"The 24th September, 1632, Sir Nicholas Saunders told me hee herd my lady of Arundall, widow of Phylip who dyed in ye Tower 1595, a virtuous and religious lady in her way, tell the ensuing relation of a Cat her Lord had. Her Lord's butler on a tyme, lost a cuppe or bowle of sylver, or at least of yt prise he was much troubled for, and knowing no other way, he went to a wyzard or Conjurer to know what was become of it, who told him he could tell him where he might see the bowle if he durst take it. The servant sayd he would venture to take it if he could see it, bee it where it would. The wyzard then told hym in such a wood there was a bare place, where if he hyed himself for a tyme he appoynted, behind a tree late in the night he should see ye Cuppe brought in, but wth all advised him if he stept in to take it, he should make hast away wth it as fast as myght bee. The servant observed what he was commanded by ye Conjurer, and about Mydnyght he saw his Lord's Cat bring in the cup was myst, and divers other creatures bring in severall other things; hee stept in, went, and felt ye Cuppe, and hyde home: where when he came he told his fellow servants this tale, so yt at ye last it was caryed to my Lord of Arundel's eare; who, when his Cat came to him, purring about his leggs as they used to doo, began jestingly to speake to her of it. The Cat presently upon his speech flewe in his face, at his throat, so yt wthout ye help of company he had not escaped wthout hurt, it was wth such violence: and after my lord being rescued got away, unknown how, and never after seene.
"There is just such a tale told of a cat a Lord Willoughby had, but this former coming from so good hands I cannot but believe.—R. T."
L. B. L.
Witchcraft. In the 13th year of the reign of King William the Third—
"One Hathaway, a most notorious rogue, feigned himself bewitched and deprived of his sight, and pretended to have fasted nine weeks together; and continuing, as he pretended, under this evil influence, he was advised, in order to discover the person supposed to have bewitched him, to boil his own water in a glass bottle till the bottle should break, and the first that came into the house after, should be the witch; and that if he scratched the body of that person till he fetched blood, it would cure him; which being done, and a poor old woman coming by chance into the house, she was seized on as the witch, and obliged to submit to be scratched till the blood came, whereupon the fellow pretended to find present ease. The poor woman hereupon was indicted for witchcraft, and tried and acquitted at Surrey assizes, before Holt, chief justice, a man of no great faith in these things; and the fellow persisting in his wicked contrivance, pretended still to be ill, and the poor woman, notwithstanding the acquittal, forced by the mob to suffer herself to be scratched by him. And this being discovered to be all imposition, an information was filed against him."—Modern Reports, vol. xii. p. 556.
Q. D.