Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

The seventeenth century was as prolific of cases of persecution of women for demon possession as any of those of the less enlightened period of mediævalism. In 1568, in a sermon before Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Jewell said: "It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within these few last years are marvellously increased within 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 knees are bereft. I pray God they never practise further than upon the subjects." The Bull of Innocent VIII., in 1484, did not do more for the furtherance of persecution of the unfortunates who came under suspicion of using magic than did the declaration of Luther: "I should have no compassion on these witches; I would burn all of them." As upon the continent, so in England reformers took up the persecution of witches with keen zest, as a contest with the powers of darkness working for the destruction of the peace and health of humanity in an open and flagrant manner. The same spirit of espionage which was one of the baleful effects of the outbreaks of persecution during the Middle Ages attended the persecution of witchcraft in England during the seventeenth century. To save themselves from suspicion, persons informed against others, and even members of a household would give evidence leading to the trial of those of their own kin. When an unfortunate fell under suspicion,—which too frequently meant the animosity of an evil-disposed person,—the minister would denounce her by name from the pulpit, prohibit his parishioners from harboring her or in any way giving her succor, and exhort them to give evidence against her. The Puritans had conned well the story of the Witch of Endor, and, with their tendency to reproduce the Old Testament spirit, felt that the existence of witches was an abomination in the sight of the Lord, which would bring divine wrath upon the community that sheltered them unless the sin were purged from it by their death. In this they were but the inheritors of the faith of the Church from the early ages, and are liable to no more serious censure for their persecution of witches than that which they merit for the vindictive and splenetic spirit and the satisfaction in barbarities and cruelty which too often they evinced.

The persecutions attendant upon witchcraft are chargeable to no one division of the Church more than to another, for Protestant as well as Catholic, Puritan as well as Prelatist, felt that in this work he was fulfilling the will of God and safeguarding society. King James I., in his Demonology, asks: "What can be the cause that there are twentie women given to that craft where there is only one man?" He gives as his reason for the disparity in numbers the greater frailty of women, which he easily and satisfactorily proves by reference to the fall of Eve, as marking the beginning of Satan's dominance of the sex.

In entering upon a crusade of persecution of witches, the Puritans were in harmony with the enactments of the sovereigns before the Commonwealth, and were in conformity with the temper of the times and the universally prevailing belief of the country. The austerity they assumed toward the sex in general made it easy for them to believe that particular characters, given over to vagabondage, were by reason of their moral turpitude especial subjects of Satan for the temptation of men. With them, the persecution of witches was not solely a matter of superstition, but of public morals as well. They were often actuated by a sincere desire to raise the standard of morality, and to preserve order and decency. That the women rather than the men should have suffered for evil courses was due, of course, to the conception that moral reprobation is to be visited upon the weaker sex.

In the second half of the seventeenth century the witchcraft superstition became a veritable epidemic, and persecution broke out in different sections of the country. Hardly had the stories of the execution of witches in one place ceased to be a nine days' wonder, when the tongues of the people were busy with stories of similar occurrences somewhere else. An angry sailor threw a stone at a boy; and the boy's mother roundly cursed the assailant of her offspring, and added the hope that his fingers would rot off. When, two years later, something of the sort actually did happen, her imprecation was remembered against her, and there was also brought to light the fact that a neighbor with whom she was at odds had been seized with severe pains and felt her bed rocking up and down. The evidence was conclusive, the woman must be a witch; such was the verdict, and death was her sentence. Two women who lived alone, and, probably partly because of their solitary existence, had developed irascible tempers and demeanors which enlisted the hearty dislike of the inhabitants of the fishing hamlet near by, were subjected to the petty persecutions in which children instigated by their parents are such adepts; finding existence too miserable to care very much for their reputations, they endangered their security by their attitude toward their tormentors. At last, nobody would even sell them fish, and their cursing and prophecies of evil for their enemies became increasingly violent. In the order of nature, some children were seized with fits, and, under the inspiration of their elders, declared that they saw the two women coming to torment them. After being eight years under accusation, the women were brought to trial, and Sir Matthew Hale, the presiding judge, after expressing his belief that the Scriptures proved the reality of witchcraft, decided against the unhappy women and condemned them to be hanged. This occurred in 1664, and constituted the celebrated witch trial of Bury St. Edmunds.

These instances serve to illustrate the fate of a vast number of hapless women during the seventeenth century; it is said that during the sittings of the Long Parliament alone, as many as three thousand persons were executed on charges of witchcraft. Besides these unhappy wretches, a great many more suffered the terrible fate of mob violence. The frenzied populace were often too impatient to await legal procedure, and stoned the miserable women to death. In the minds of the great majority of the people, such women were not human beings at all, and so there was no cruelty in treating them with the greatest violence possible. Indeed, such earnestness of purpose against the adversaries of God could but redound, they thought, to their eternal advantage. After all, was it not a devil, who for the time being assumed human form, that they were treating with such violence? to-morrow, the same demon might be found in a dog or in some other animal, or perhaps afflicting with cholera the swine of some peasant, to his severe loss. A description of a witch in the first half of the seventeenth century says: "The devil's otter-hound, living both on land and sea, and doing mischief in either; she kills more beasts than a licensed butcher in Lent, yet is ne'er the fatter; she's but a dry nurse in the flesh, yet gives such to the spirit. A witch rides many times post on hellish business, yet if a ladder do but stop her, she will be hanged ere she goes any further." The penal statutes against witchcraft were not formally repealed until 1751, when there was closed for England one of the saddest chapters in the history of human mistakes. The last judicial executions for witchcraft in England were in 1716.

In pleasing contrast to the unhappy creatures who were the victims of fanatical persecutions during the Commonwealth period—the women executed for witchcraft—stand the noble women who were developed by the stern conditions of the Civil War—the heroines of internecine strife. The domestic incidents of the Civil War form an interesting commentary upon the character of the English woman, as they reveal her in brave defence of castle or homestead, patient in hardship, courageous in danger, and fertile in resources to avert misfortune. Every important family was ranged on one side or the other, and the line of division often passed through households. To all other issues which aroused human passion, or touched the springs of human character and brought forth the reserve heroism of human life, was added that issue which stirs deepest the human heart,—the issue of religion. The contest was not merely between king and people: it was a contest as well between the people themselves as to the form of religion they desired as the expression of their faith.

Under such conditions women could not be kept out of the turmoil and the strife; perhaps one of the important ends which this distressful period brought about was the crystallizing of the convictions of many women, who otherwise would not have thought or felt deeply upon that subject which is fundamental to the welfare of a nation and the character of its people,—the subject of religion. Royalists and Puritans, the women were arrayed on each side. They followed the issues with an earnest alertness born of an intelligent understanding of the causes involved and their own vital relation to the contest in its results.

One of the Puritan women who literally entered into the fray was Mrs. Hutchinson. Her father, Sir Allen Apsley, was governor of the Tower during Sir Walter Raleigh's incarceration. It is probable that Mrs. Hutchinson had some knowledge of medicine, because during the siege of Nottingham she was actively engaged in dressing the soldiers' wounds and furnishing them with drugs and lotions suitable to their cases, and met with great success in her rôle of physician even in the cases of those of some who were dangerously wounded. But it was not solely in the character of nurse and physician that she was so active, for, in conjunction with the other women of the town, after the departure of the Royalist forces, she aided in districting the city for patrols of fifty, the courageous women thus taking an active share in the arduous duties of the town's defence. This intrepid woman later appeared in the character of peacemaker. The elections of 1660 were of a violent character, on account of the ill feeling between the Royalists of the town and the soldiers of the Commonwealth. At the critical moment, Mrs. Hutchinson arrived, and, being acquainted with the captains, persuaded them to countenance no tumultuous methods, whatever might be the provocation, but to make complaint in regular form to the general and let him assume the work of preserving the peace. This they consented to do; and the townsmen were equally amenable to her wise counsel, and contracted to restrain their children and servants from endangering the peace of the people.

Courage and initiative were not limited to the women on one side of the contest, as is well illustrated by the conduct of the Countess of Derby, who, in 1643, made a remarkable defence of Latham House; the countess was of French birth and had in her veins the indomitable spirit of the Dutch, for she was a descendant of Count William of Nassau. She was called upon either to yield up her home or to subscribe to the propositions of Parliament, and, upon her refusal to do either, was besieged in her castle and kept in confinement within its walls, with no larger range of liberty than the castle yard. Her estate was sequestered, and she was daily affronted with mocking and contemptuous language. When she was requested by Sir Thomas Fairfax to yield up the castle, she replied with quiet dignity that she wondered how he could exact such a thing of her, when she had done nothing in the way of offence to Parliament, and she requested that, as the matter affected both her religion and her life, besides her loyalty to her sovereign and to her lord, she might have a week's consideration of the demand. She declined the proposition of Sir Thomas Fairfax to meet him at a certain house a quarter of a mile distant from the castle for purposes of conference, saying that it was more knightly that he should wait upon her than she upon him. After further parleyings failed of conclusion, she finally sent a message that brought on a renewal of the siege. She said that she refused all the propositions of the Parliamentarians, and was happy that they had refused hers, and that she would hazard her life before again making any overtures: "That though a woman and a stranger, divorced from her friends and robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive their utmost violence, trusting in God for deliverance and protection."

The siege dragged on wearily for six or seven weeks, at the end of which time Sir Thomas Fairfax resigned his post to Colonel Rigby. The castle forces amounted to three hundred soldiers, while the besieging force numbered between two and three thousand men. In the contest five hundred of these were killed, while the countess lost but six of her soldiers, who were killed through their own negligence. The colonel manufactured a number of grenadoes, and then sent an ultimatum to the countess, who tore up the paper and returned answer by the messenger to "that insolent" [Rigby] that he should have neither her person, goods, nor house; and as to his grenadoes, she would find a more merciful fire, and, if the providence of God did not order otherwise, that her house, her goods, her children, and her soldiers would perish in flames of their own lighting, and so she and her family and defenders would seal their religion and loyalty. The next morning the countess caused a sally of her forces to be made, in which they got possession of the ditch and rampart and a very destructive mortar which had been used to bombard the besieged. Rigby wrote to his superiors, begging assistance and saying that the length of the siege and the hard duties it entailed had wearied all his soldiers, and that he himself was completely worn out. In the meanwhile, the Earl of Derby and Prince Rupert made their appearance, and Rigby made a hurried retreat; in his endeavor to escape the Royalist forces, he fell into an ambush and received a severe punishment before he reached the town of Bolton. Such were the deeds of women of spirit upon each side of the civil conflict; and because of their elements of character and loyalty to conviction, the women of the better classes of England, irrespective of their affiliations, mark a high point of progress in the sex toward the goal of independence and individuality which the civil strife aided them to secure.