The following account is taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine of July 1851:—
“Singular Instance of Superstition, A.D. 1629
“The Case, or, rather, History of a Case that happened in the County of Hereford in the fourth Year of the Reign of King Charles the First, which was taken from a MS. of Serjeant Mainard, who writes thus:
“‘I write the evidence which was given, which I and many others heard, and I write it exactly according to what was deposed at the Trial at the Bar in the King’s Bench. Johan Norkot, the wife of Arthur Norkot, being murdered, the question arose how she came by her death. The coroner’s inquest on view of the body and deposition of Mary Norkot, John Okeman and Agnes, his wife, inclined to find Joan Norkot felo de se: for they (i.e. the witnesses before mentioned) informed the coroner and the jury that she was found dead in the bed and her throat cut, the knife sticking in the floor of the room; that the night before she was so found she went to bed with her child (now plaintiff in this appeal), her husband being absent, and that no other person after such time as she was gone to bed came into the house, the examinants lying in the outer room, and they must needs have seen if any stranger had come in. Whereupon the jury gave up to the coroner their verdict that she was felo de se. But afterwards upon rumour in the neighbourhood, and the observation of divers circumstances that manifested she did not, nor according to these circumstances, possibly could, murder herself, thereupon the jury, whose verdict was not drawn into form by the coroner, desired the coroner that the body which was buried might be taken up out of the grave, which the coroner assented to, and thirty days after her death she was taken up, in the presence of the jury and a great number of the people, whereupon the jury changed their verdict. The persons being tried at Hertford Assizes were acquitted, but so much against the evidence that the judge (Harvy) let fall his opinion that it were better an appeal were brought than so foul a murder should escape unpunished.
“‘Anno, paschæ termino, quarto Caroli, they were tried on the appeal which was brought by the young child against his father, the grandfather and aunt, and her husband Okeman. And because the evidence was so strange I took exact and particular notes of it, which was as followeth, of the matters above mentioned and related, an ancient and grave person, the minister of the parish where the fact was committed, being sworn to give evidence according to custom, deposed, that the body being taken out of the grave thirty days after the party’s death and lying on the grave and the four defendants present, they were required each of them to touch the dead body. O.’s wife fell on her knees and prayed God to show token of their innocency, or to some such purpose, but her very words I forget. The appellers did touch the dead body, whereupon the brow of the dead, which was all a livid or carrion colour (that was the verbal expression in the terms of the witness) began to have a dew or gentle sweat, which reached down in drops on the face, and the brow turned and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and the dead opened one of her eyes and shut it again, and this opening the eye was done three several times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times and pulled it in again, and the finger dropt blood from it on the grass.
“‘Hyde (Nicholas), Chief Justice, seeming to doubt the evidence, asked the witness: “Who saw this beside yourself?”
“‘Witness: “I cannot swear that others saw it; but, my lord,” said he, “I believe the whole company saw it, and if it had been thought a doubt, proof would have been made of it, and many would have attested with me.”
“‘Then the witness observing some admiration in the auditors, he spoke further, “My lord, I am minister of the parish, long knew all the parties, but never had any occasion of displeasure against any of them, nor had to do with them, or they with me, but as their minister. The thing was wonderful to me, but I have no interest in the matter, but am called upon to testify the truth and that I have done.”
“‘This witness was a reverend person as I guess about seventy years of age. His testimony was delivered gravely and temperately, but to the good admiration of the auditor. Whereupon, applying himself to the Lord Chief Justice, he said, “My lord, my brother here present is minister of the next parish adjacent, and I am assured saw all done as I have affirmed,” whereupon that person was also sworn to give evidence, and he deposed the same in every point, viz., the sweat of the brow, the changes of its colour, the opening of the eye, the thrice motion of the finger and drawing it in again; only the first witness deposed that a man dipped his finger in the blood to examine it, and swore he believed it was real blood. I conferred afterwards with Sir Edmund Vowel, barrister at law, and others who concurred in this observation, and for myself, if I were upon my oath, can depose that these depositions, especially of the first witness, are truly here reported in substance.
“‘The other evidence was given against the prisoners, viz., against the grandmother of the plaintiff and against Okeman and his wife, that they lay in the next room to the dead person that night, and that none came into the house till they found her dead next morning, therefore if she did not murther herself, they must be the murtherers, and to that end further proof was made. First she lay in a composed manner in her bed, the bed cloaths nothing at all disturbed, and her child by her in the bed. Secondly, her throat was cut from ear to ear and her neck broken, and if she first cut her throat, she could not break her neck in the bed, nor e contra. Thirdly, there was no blood in the bed, saving that there was a tincture of blood upon the bolster whereupon her head lay, but no other substance of blood at all. Fourthly, from the bed’s head on there was a stream of blood on the floor, till it ponded on the bending of the floor to a very great quantity and there was also another stream of blood on the floor at the bed’s feet, which ponded also on the floor to another great quantity but no other communication of blood on either of these places, the one from the other, neither upon the bed, so that she bled in two places severely, and it was deposed that turning up the matte of the bed, there were clotes of congealed blood in the straw of the matte underneath. Fifthly, the bloody knife in the morning was found clinging in the floor a good distance from the bed, but the point of the knife as it stuck in the floor was towards the bed and the haft towards the door. Sixthly, lastly, there was the brand of a thumb and four fingers of a left hand on the dead person’s left hand.