THE BOY OF BILSTON.[125]
The war between Papists and Protestants still went on, and the favourite weapon with each was the old one of Possession, and its result—exorcism. The patient in the present case was William Perry, a youth of twelve, generally called the Boy of Bilston, whom Joan Cock bewitched for the better showing forth the glory of God and the Church, and to the hurt of her own soul and body. One day William Perry met old Joan as he returned from school, and forbore to give her good time of the day, as a well-bred youth should: whereat the old woman was angry, and called him “a foul thing,” saying “that it had been better for him if he had saluted her.” At which words the boy felt something prick him to his heart, and when he came home fell into fits of the most demoniac kind. The parents seeing his extremity went cap and knee to some Catholics in the neighbourhood, and they, after long solicitation, proceeded to the exorcising. They poured holy water and holy oil in goodly quantity upon him, and left supplies of both to be used in their absence. The devil was sore afflicted by the holy water and the holy oil, and made the boy cast up pins, and wool, and knotted thread, and rosemary leaves, and walnut leaves, and feathers, and “thrums.” For there were three devils inside him, he said, and they had uncommon power. On Corpus Christi day he brought up eleven pins, and a knitting needle folded in divers folds; all after extreme fits and heavings; and then the spirit told him not to listen to the exorcising priest—which was a great compliment from the devil—and that the witch had said she would make an end of him. When told to pray for the witch, the boy and the devils were furious; but afterwards calmed down on the exorciser getting extra power; and then the boy prayed his prayer and grew better. Then he demanded that everything about him should be blessed, and that all his family should be Catholics; but when any Puritans came in, he said the devil assaulted him in the shape of a black bird. So it was a vastly pretty little case of witness and conversion, and the Catholics made the most of it. Joan must now be arrested; for the fits continued, and the young gentleman was not to be pacified with anything short of the witch’s blood. When brought into his presence the boy had extreme fits, crying out: “‘Now she comes, now my Tormentor comes!’ writhing and tearing and twisting himself into such Shapes as bred at once Amazement and Pity in the Spectators:” so the old woman was sent to Stafford gaol, but, because this was a Popish matter, acquitted without long delay. Then the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, desirous of testing the matter, and unwilling that the Catholics should take any glory to themselves for their holy oils and their anointings which were said to have calmed the most “sounding fits,” took William Perry home to the Castle, and there had him watched: and watched so well that certain dirty tricks not to be spoken of here were found out, and the physiological part of the “miracle” set at rest. But before this the Bishop tried the devils with Greek. For they could not abide the first verse of the first chapter of St. John, and always fell on the boy with fury when it was read; so, said the Bishop, whose wits sectarian hatred had sharpened—one bigotry driving out another—“Boy, it is either thou or the Devil that abhorrest those Words of the Gospel: and if it be the Devil (he being so ancient a Scholar, as of almost six Thousand Years’ standing) knows, and understands all Languages; so that he cannot but know when I recite the same sentence out of the Greek Text: But if it be thyself then art thou an execrable Wretch, who plays the Devil’s part; wherefore look to thyself, for now thou art to be put to Trial, and mark diligently, whether it be that same Scripture which shall be read.” Then was read the twelfth verse of the first chapter, at which William, supposing it to be the abhorred first, fell into his customary fits; but when, immediately after, the first verse was read, he, supposing it was another, was not moved at all. By which means this part of the fraud was discovered also; and when, moving his eyes and staring about him wildly, he declared that he saw mice running round the bed, no one gave any credit to his words. When the whole thing was blown to the winds, and the Greek test had failed, and the dirty tricks had been found out, the boy made a pretended confession, which was evidently no more true than anything else had been. He said that one day as he was coming home, an old man called Thomas, with gray hair and a cradle of glasses on his shoulders, met him, and after asking him if he went to school and how he liked it, told him that he could teach him a few tricks which should prevent his going to school any more, and would instead lead all people to pity and lament him, holding him to be bewitched. But it was shrewdly suspected that the old man Thomas, with his gray hair and cradle of glass, was but a pleasant phantasy of the imagination; and that the real secret had lain with the Catholic priests, who, finding the boy apt and handy, thought they could make good capital out of him for their Church, and put him forth as a witness for its divine power and holy office, seeing that it could dispossess the demoniac and drive away evil spirits. Fortunately they reckoned without their host—the host of “reformed” bigotry and hatred: for we need not congratulate ourselves on any clearsightedness or common sense in the matter. Had the Boy of Bilston been a sound Protestant, he would have been held as indubitably Possessed by the Devil, and some poor wretch would have been found as a convenient sacrifice to the stupidity of that devil.
MR. FAIRFAX’S FOLLY.
The next year saw Mr. Fairfax of Knaresborough—Edward Fairfax, the scholar, the gentleman, the classic, our best translator of Tasso, graceful, learned, elegant Edward Fairfax—pursuing with incredible zeal six of his neighbours for supposed witchcraft on his children. The children had fits and were afflicted with imps, so Edward Fairfax thought his paternal duty consisted in getting the lives of six supposed witches, the hanging of whom would infallibly cure his children, and drive away the evil spirits possessing them. But fortunately for the accused the judge had more sense than Mr. Fairfax; and, though the women were sent back again for another assize, suffered them to escape with only the terror of death twice repeated. It is strange to find ourselves face to face with such stupid bigotry as this in a man so estimable and so refined as Fairfax.
THE COUNTESS.[126]
Lady Jennings and her young daughter Elizabeth, of thirteen, lived at Thistlewood in the year 1622. One day an old woman, coming no one knew whence, perhaps from the bowels of the earth, appeared suddenly before the girl, demanding a pin. The child was frightened, and had fits soon after—fits of the usual hysteric character, but quite sufficiently severe to alarm Lady Jennings. A doctor was sent for; but also, as well as the doctor, came a clever shrewd woman called Margaret Russill, or “Countess,” a bit of a doctress in her way, perhaps a bit of a white witch too, who thought she could do the afflicted child some good, and had beside a love of putting her fingers into everybody’s pie. At the end of one of her fits the child began to cry out wildly, then mentioned Margaret and three others as the persons who had bewitched her. And then she went on, incoherently, “These have bewitched all my mother’s children—east, west, north, and south all these lie—all these are witches. Set up a great sprig of rosemary in the middle of the house—I have sent this child to speak, to show all these witches—Put Countess in prison, this child will be well—If she had been long ago, all together had been alive—Them she bewitched with a cat-stick—Till then I shall be in great pain—Till then, by fits, I shall be in great extremity—They died in great misery.” No mother’s heart could resist the appeal contained in these wild words; poor Countess was arrested, and taken before Mr. Slingsby, a magistrate. When there she said, though heaven knows what prompted her to tell such falsehoods, “Yesterday she went to Mrs. Dromondbye in Black-and-White Court, in the Old Baylye; and told her that the Lady Jennings had a daughter strangely sicke, whereuppon the said Dromondbye wished her to goe to inquire at Clerkenwell for a minister’s wiffe that cold helpe people that were sicke, but she must not aske for a witch or a cunning woman, but for one that is a phisition woman; and then this examinate found her and a woman sitting with her and told her in what case the child was, and shee said shee wold come this day, but shee ought her noe service, and said shee had bin there before and left receiptes there, but the child did not take them. And she said further that there was two children that her Lady Jennins had by this husband, that were bewitched and dead, for there was controversie betweene two howses, and that as long as they dwelt there, they cold not prosper, and that there shold be noe blessing in that howse by this man.” When asked what was this “difference,” she answered, “Between the house of God and the house of the world:” but when told that this was no answer, and that she must explain herself more clearly, she said that “she meant the apothecary Higgins and my Lady Jennings.” “And shee further confessed that above a moneth agoe she went to Mrs. Saxey in Gunpouder Alley, who was forespoken herself, and that had a boke that cold helpe all those that were forespoken, and that shee wold come and shewe her the booke and help her under God. And further said to this examinate, that none but a seminary priest cold cure her.” So here again we have the constantly recurring element of sectarianism, without which, indeed, we should be at a loss how to understand much that meets us. “Countess” was committed to Newgate, and the bewitched child cried out more and more against her, making new revelations with each fit, when the pitiful farce was brought to a close by the minister’s wife, Mrs. Goodcole, who, when confronted with Countess, denied point blank the more important parts of her evidence. And then all this evil—this much ado about nothing—was found to have arisen from a private quarrel; and when Dr. Napier was sent for, he unbewitched the possessed child with some very simple remedies, and the great balloon burst and fell to the ground in hopeless collapse.
THE TWO VOICES.[127]
On the 13th of August, 1626, Edward Bull and Joan Greedie were indicted at Taunton for bewitching Edward Dinham. Dinham was a capital ventriloquist, and could speak in two different voices beside his own, as well as counterfeit fits and play the possessed to the life. One of his two feigned voices was pleasant and shrill, and belonged to a good spirit; the other was deadly and hollow, and belonged to an evil spirit. And when he spoke his lips did not move, and he lay as if in a trance, and both he and the voices said that he was bewitched, and all the people believed them. And the good voice asked who had bewitched him, to which the bad replied, “A woman in greene cloathes and a blacke hatt with long poll, and a man in gray srite, with blewe stockings.” When asked where she was now, the bad spirit answered, “At her own house,” while he was at a tavern in “Yeohull,” Ireland. Then after some pressing the bad spirit said that the name of one was “Johan,” of the other “Edward;” and after more pressing still, confessed to the surnames, “Greedie and Bull.” So in consequence of this reliable report messengers were sent off to find old Joan, and when found arrest her. Then the good spirit, who played the part of a benevolent Pry, asked how these two became witches, to which the bad answered, “By descent.” “But how by descent?” says the good spirit, anxious not to leave a lock unfastened or a problem unsolved. “From the grandmother to the mother, and from the mother to the children,” says the bad. “But howe were they soe?” says Goody. “They were bound to us and we to them,” answered the bad, with more words than explanation.
Good Spirit—“Lett me see the bond.”
Bad Spirit—“Thou shalt not.”