[X a]. "Elizabeth Astley, John Ramsden, Alice Gray, Isabel Sidegraues, Lawrence Hay.">[ The specific charges against these persons, with the exception of Alice Gray, do not appear, nor is it said where their places of residence were. Alice Gray was reputed to have been at the meeting of witches at Malkin's Tower, and to her the judge refers, perhaps, in particular, when he says, "Without question, there are amongst you that are as deepe in this action as any of them that are condemned to die for their offences."
[X b]. "The Execution of the Witches.">[ We could have dispensed with many of the flowers of rhetoric with which the pages of this discovery are strewed, if Master Potts would have favoured us with a plain, unvarnished account of what occurred at this execution. It is here, in the most interesting point of all, that his narrative, in other respects so full and abundant, stops short, and seems curtailed of its just proportions. The "learned and worthy preacher," to whom the prisoners were commended by the judge, was probably Mr. William Leigh, of Standish, before mentioned. Amongst his papers or correspondence, if they should happen to have been preserved, some account may eventually be found of the sad closing scene of these melancholy victims of superstition.
[X 2 a]. "Neither can I paint in extraordinarie tearmes.">[ The worthy clerk is too modest. He is a great painter, the Tintoretto of witchcraft.
[Y a 1]. "Hauing cut off Thomas Lister, Esquire, father to this gentleman now liuing.">[ Thomas Lister, of Westby, ancestor of the Listers, Lords Ribblesdale, married Jane, daughter of John Greenacres, Esquire, of Worston, county of Lancaster, and was buried at Gisburn, February 8th, 1607. His son, Thomas Lister, referred to as the "gentleman now living," married Jane, daughter of Thomas Heber, Esq., of Marton, after mentioned, and was buried at Gisburn, July 10th, 1619.
[Y a 2]. "Was Indicted and Arraigned for the murder of a Child of one Dodg-sonnes.">[ One acquittal was no protection to these unhappy creatures. It caused only additional exasperation, and, sooner or later, they were brought within what Donne calls "the hungry statutes' gaping jaws." Whether superstition or malice prompted this prosecution, on the part of Mr. Lister, it is difficult to say. Some grudge he entertained, or cause of offence he had taken up against this Jennet Preston, might be her death warrant in those days, when it was penal for a woman to be old, helpless, ugly, and poor. She was not so fortunate as the females tried at York, nine years afterwards, for bewitching the children of Edward Fairfax, of Fuyston, in the forest of Knaresborough, to whom we owe the only English translation of Tasso worthy of the name. These females, six in number, were indicted at two successive assizes, and every effort was made by the
"Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung,"
to procure their conviction. Never was a more unequal contest. On the one side was a relentless antagonist, armed with wealth, influence, learning, and accomplishments, and whose family connections gave him an unlimited power in the county; and on the other, six helpless persons, whose sex, age, and poverty were almost sufficient for their condemnation, without any evidence at all. Yet, owing to the magnanimous firmness of the judge, whose name, deserving of immortal honour, I regret has not been preserved, these efforts were frustrated, and the women accused delivered from the gulph which yawned before them. The disappointment he experienced in this instance, in being defrauded, as he thought, of a conviction for which he had strained every nerve and sinew, and in not being allowed to render the forest of Knaresborough as famous as that of Pendle, cast a gloom of despondency over the remaining days of this admirable poet, who has left a narration of the whole transaction, of most singular interest and curiosity, yet unpublished. The MSS. now in my possession, and which came from Mr. Bright's collection, consists of seventy-eight closely-written folio pages. It is entitled "A Discourse of Witchcraft, as it was enacted in the family of Mr. Edward Fairfax, of Fuystone, coun. Ebor, 1621." From page 78 to 144 are a series of ninety-three most extraordinary and spirited sketches, made with the pen, of the witches, devils, monsters, and apparitions referred to in the narrative.
[Y 2 a]. "Master Heyber.">[ This was Thomas Hayber, or Heber, of Marton, in Craven, Esquire, who was buried at Marton, 7th February, 1633. He was the ancestor of Bishop Reginald Heber and the late Richard Heber, Esq.
[Y 3 a]. "The said Iennet Preston comming to touch the dead corpes, they bled fresh bloud presently.">[ On the popular superstition of touching the corpse of a murdered person, as an ordeal or test for the discovery of the innocence or guilt of suspected murderers, the reader cannot better be referred than to the very learned and elaborate essay in Pitcairne's Criminal Trials, vol. iii. p. 182-189. Amongst the authors there quoted, Webster is omitted, who, (see Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, p. 304,) discusses the point at considerable length, and with an earnest and implicit faith singularly at variance with his enlightened scepticism in other matters. But there were regions of superstition in which even this Sampson of logic became imbecile and powerless. The rationale of the bleeding of a murdered corpse at the touch of the murderer is given by Sir Kenelm Digby with his usual force and spirit:
To this cause, peradventure, may be reduced the strange effect which is frequently seen in England, when, at the approach of the Murderer, the slain body suddenly bleedeth afresh. For certainly the Souls of them that are treacherously murdered by surprise, use to leaue their bodies with extreme unwillingness, and with vehement indignation against them that force them to so unprovided and abhorred a passage! That Soul, then, to wreak its evil talent against the hated Murderer, and to draw a just and desired revenge upon his head, would do all it can to manifest the author of the fact! To speak it cannot—for in itself it wanteth the organs of voice; and those it is parted from are now grown too heavy, and are too benummed, for to give motion unto: Yet some change it desireth to make in the body, which it hath so vehement inclination to; and therefore is the aptest for it to work upon. It must then endeavour to cause a motion in the subtilest and most fluid parts (and consequently the most moveable ones) of it. This can be nothing but the blood, which then being violently moved, must needs gush out at those places where it findeth issue!