“Who upon oath informeth, being examined concerning the great meeting of the Witches of Pendle, saith that upon All Saints’ Day last past, he, this Informer, being with one Henry Parker, a near-door neighbour to him in Wheatley-lane, desired the said Parker to give him leave to gather some Bulloes, which he did. In gathering whereof he saw two Grayhounds, viz., a black and a brown one, come running over the next field towards him, he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutter’s, and the other to be Mr. Robinson’s, the said Gentlemen then having such like. And saith, the said Grayhounds came to him, and fawned on him, they having about their necks either of them a Collar, unto each of which was tied a String; which Collars (as this Informer affirmeth) did shine like Gold. And he thinking that some either of Mr. Nutters or Mr. Robinsons Family should have followed them; yet seeing no body to follow them, he took the same Grayhounds, thinking to course with them. And presently a Hare did rise very near before him. At the sight whereof he cried Loo, Loo, Loo: but the Doggs would not run. Whereupon he being very angry took them, and with the strings that were about their Collars, tied them to a little bush at the next hedge, and with a switch that he had in his hand he beat them. And in stead of the black Grayhound, one Dickensons Wife stood up, a Neighbour, whom this Informer knoweth. And in stead of the brown one a little Boy, whom this Informer knoweth not. At which sight this Informer, being afraid, endeavoured to run away; but being stayed by the Woman, (viz.) by Dickensons Wife, she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled forth a piece of Silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give him it to hold his tongue and not to tell; which he refused, saying, Nay, thou art a Witch. Whereupon she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out a thing like unto a Bridle that gingled, which she put on the little Boyes head; which said Boy stood up in the likeness of a white Horse, and in the brown Grayhounds stead. Then immediately Dickensons wife took this Informer before her upon the said Horse and carried him to a new house called Hoarstones, being about a quarter of a mile off. Whither when they were come, there were divers persons about the door, and he saw divers others riding on Horses of several colours towards the said House, who tied their Horses to a hedge near to the said House. Which persons went into the said House, to the number of three score or thereabouts, as this Informer thinketh, where they had a fire, and meat roasting in the said House, whereof a young Woman (whom this Informer knoweth not) gave him Flesh and Bread upon a Trencher, and Drink in a Glass, which after the first taste he refused, and would have no more, but said it was nought.
“And presently after, seeing divers of the said company going into a Barn near adjoining, he followed after them, and there he saw six of them kneeling, and pulling all six of them six several ropes, which were fastened or tied to the top of the Barn. Presently after which pulling, there came into this Informers sight flesh smoaking, butter in lumps, and milk as it were syleing (straining) from the said ropes. All which fell into basons which were placed under the said ropes. And after that these six had done, there came other six which did so likewise. And during all the time of their several pulling, they made such ugly faces as scared this Informer, so that he was glad to run out and steal homewards; who immediately finding they wanted one that was in their company, some of them ran after him near to a place in a Highway called Boggard-hole, where he, this Informer, met two Horsemen. At the sight whereof the said persons left following of him. But the foremost of those persons that followed him he knew to be one Loinds Wife; which said Wife, together with one Dickensons Wife, and one Jennet Davies, he hath seen since at several times in a Croft or Close adjoining to his Fathers house, which put him in great fear. And further this Informer saith, upon Thursday after New Years Day last past he saw the said Loinds Wife sitting upon a cross piece of wood being within the Chimney of his Fathers dwelling-house; and he, calling to her, said, Come down, thou Loynds Wife. And immediately the said Loynds Wife went up out of his sight. And further this Informer saith, that after he was come from the company aforesaid to his Fathers house, being towards evening, his Father bad him go and fetch home two kine to seal (tie up). And in the way, in a field called the Ellers, he chanced to hap upon a Boy, who began to quarrel with him, and they fought together, till the Informer had his ears and face made up very bloody by fighting, and looking down he saw the Boy had a cloven foot. At which sight, he being greatly affrighted, came away from him to seek the kine. And in the way he saw a light like to a Lanthorn, towards which he made haste, supposing it to be carried by some of Mr. Robinson’s people; but when he came to the place he only found a Woman standing on a Bridge, whom, when he saw, he knew her to be Loinds Wife, and knowing her he turned back again; and immediately he met the aforesaid Boy, from whom he offered to run, which Boy gave him a blow on the back that made him to cry. And further this Informer saith, that when he was in the Barn, he saw three Women take six Pictures from off the beam, in which Pictures were many Thorns or such like things sticked in them, and that Loynds Wife took one of the Pictures down, but the other two Women that took down the rest he knoweth not. And being further asked what persons were at the aforesaid meeting, he nominated these persons following.” Here follows a list of names of no interest to the modern reader. At the end of this deposition is one from the Father.
“Edmund Robinson of Pendle, Father of the aforesaid Edmund Robinson, Mason, informeth,
“That upon All Saints-day last he sent his Son the aforesaid Informer, to fetch home two kine to seal, and saith that his Son, staying longer than he thought he should have done, he went to seek him, and in seeking of him heard him cry pitifully, and found him so affrighted and distracted that he neither knew his Father nor did know where he was, and so continued very near a quarter of an hour before he came to himself. And he told this Informer his Father all the particular passages that are before declared in the said Robinson his Son’s Information.
(Signed) “Richard Shuttleworth.
“John Starkey.”
Who would dare to doubt such testimony as this? Here was another child of God grievously mishandled; and what might not be done to the servants of the devil who had so evilly intreated him? And was not Edmund Robinson evidently raised up and directed by God to be the scourge of all witches, and the great discoverer of their naughty pranks? So the lad was elevated to the post of witch-finder, and was taken about from church to church—accusing any who might strike his fancy or his fears, and sending them off to prison at the impulse of his childish will. Among other places he was brought to the parish church of Kildwick, where Webster was then curate. It was during the afternoon service, and the lad was put upon a stall to look the better about him, and discern the witches more clearly. After service Webster went to him and found him with “two very unlikely persons that did conduct him and manage the business:” the curate of Kildwick would have drawn him aside, but the men would not suffer this. Then said Webster, “‘Good boy, tell me truly and in earnest, didst thou hear and see such strange things of the meeting of witches as is reported by many that thou dost relate, or did some person teach thee to say such things of thyself?’ But the two men, not giving the boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace, and they did never ask him such a question; to whom I replied, ‘The persons accused had therefore the more wrong.’” So Webster got nothing by this, and the boy was not damaged nor his credit shaken. Very many persons were arrested on this young imp’s accusations, beside those seventeen whom he had seen “syleing” butter and bacon from witch-ropes in the magic barn. And among the rest Jennet Device, (was she our old acquaintance of perjured memory?) who was charged with killing Isabelle, the wife of William Nutter; and Mary Spencer, who was in imminent danger for having “caused a pale or cellocke to come to her, full of water, fourteen yards up a hill from a well;” and Margaret Johnson, accused of killing Henry Heape, and wasting and impairing the body of Jennet Shackleton—but there was no proof against her, save certain witch marks, which, however, were indisputable, and on the finding of which she was soon brought to confess. She said that, seven or eight years since, she was in a mighty rage against life and the world in general, when there appeared to her the devil like a man, dressed all in black tied about with silk points, who offered her all she might wish or want in return for her soul; telling her that she might kill man or beast as she should desire, and take her revenge when she would; and that if she did but call “Mamillion” when she wanted him, he would come on the instant and do as he was bid. So “after a sollicitacion or two, she contracted and condicioned with the said devill or spiritt for her soul,” and henceforth became one of the most notorious of the Lancashire witches. She confessed that she was at the great witch-meeting held at Harestones, in Pendle, on All Saints’-day last past, and again at another the Sunday after; and that all the witches rode there on horses, and went to consult on the killing of men and beasts; and that “there was one devill or spiritt that was more greate and grand devill than the rest, and yf anie witch desired to have such an one, they might have such an one to kill or hurt anie body.” She said, too, which was a new idea on her part, that the sharp-boned witches were more powerful and malignant than those with “biggs” only; and then she wandered off, and accused certain of her neighbours, of whom one, “Pickhamer’s wife, was the most greate, grand, and auncyent witch.” Then she told her audience that if any witch desired to be carried to any place, a cat, or a dog, or a rod would convey them away; but not their bodies, only their souls in the likeness of their bodies. The judge was not quite satisfied with either Edmund Robinson’s depositions or Margaret’s confessions, and for all that the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, managed to get a reprieve, and to send up some of the accused to London. He managed also to interest the king, Charles I., who had not his father’s craze on the subject; and Charles ordered the bishop to make a special examination of the case, and send in his report. By this time, too, Edmund and his father were separated, and the boy fully examined; when at last he confessed to the entire worthlessness and fraud of all he had said. He had been robbing an orchard of bullees (plums) more than a mile off the barn at the day and hour named; and, counselled by his father, had made up those wicked lies to screen himself. And then, finding the game profitable—for in a short time they made so good a thing by it that the father bought a couple of cows—he flew further a-field, and attacked every one within reach. Fortunately for his victims, the judge was a man of sense and independent judgment; so the judiciary records of England are stained with one crime the less, and the neighbours lost the excitement of an execution.
THE WITCH ON A PLANK.[129]
“Many are in a belief that this silly sex of women can by no means attaine to that so vile and damned a practise of Sorcery and Witchcraft, in regard of their illiteratenesse and want of learning, which many men have by great learning done;” nevertheless the Earl of Essex and his army, marching through Newberry, saw a feat done by a woman which not the most learned man of them all could have accomplished by natural means. Two soldiers were loitering behind the main body, gathering nuts, blackberries, and the like, when one climbed up a tree for sport, and the other followed him, jesting. From their vantage place, looking on the river, they there espied a “tall, lean, slender woman treading of the water with her feet with as much ease and firmnesse as if one should walk or trample on the earth.” The soldier called to his companion, and he to the rest; and soon they all—captains, privates, and commanders alike—saw this marvellous lean woman, who now they perceived was standing on a thin plank, “which she pushed this way and that at her pleasure, making it a pastime to her, little perceiving who was on her tracks.” Then she crossed the river, and the army after her; but there they lost her for a time, and when they found her all were too cowardly to seize her. At last one dare-devil went up and boldly caught her, demanding what she was. The poor wretch was dumb—perhaps with terror—and spoke nothing; so they dragged her before the commanders, “to whom, though she was mightily urged, she did reply as little.” As they could bethink themselves of nothing better to do with her, they set her upright against a mud bank or wall, and two of the soldiers, at their captain’s command, made ready and fired. “But with a deriding and loud laughter at them, she caught their bullets in her hands and chew’d them, which was a stronger testimony than her treading water that she was the same that their imagination thought her for to be.” Then one of the men set his carbine against her breast and fired; but the bullet rebounded like a ball, and narrowly missed the face of the shooter, which “so enraged the Gentleman, that one drew out his sword and manfully run at her with all the force his strength had power to make, but it prevailed no more than did the shot, the woman though still speechlesse, yet in a most contemptible way of Scorn still laughing at them, which did the more exhaust their furie against her life; yet one amongst the rest had heard that piercing or drawing bloud from forth the veines that crosse the temples of the head, it would prevail against the strongest sorcery, and quell the force of Witchcraft, which was allowed for Triall: the woman, hearing this, knew then the Devill had left her, and her power was gone; wherefore she began alowd to cry and roare, tearing her haire, and making pitious moan, which in these words expressed were: And is it come to passe that I must dye indeed? Why then his Excellency the Earle of Essex shall be fortunate and win the field. After which no more words could be got from her; wherewith they immediately discharged a Pistoll underneath her eare, at which she straight sunk down and dyed, leaving her legacy of a detested carcasse to the wormes, her soul we ought not to iudge of, though the euills of her wicked life and death can scape no censure. Finis. This Book is not Printed according to order.”
THE WITCH-FINDING OF HOPKINS.
And now the reign of Matthew Hopkins, of Mannington, gent., begins—that most infamous follower of an infamous trade—the witch-finder general of England. It was Hopkins who first reduced the practice of witch-finding to a science, and established rules as precise as any to be made for mathematics or logic. His method of proceeding was to “walk” a suspected witch between two inquisitors, who kept her from food and sleep, and incessantly walking, for four-and-twenty hours; or if she could not be thus walked she was cross-bound—her right toe fastened to her left thumb, and her left toe to her right thumb—care being taken to draw the cords as tightly as possible, and to keep her as uneasily, and in this state she was placed on a high stool or chair, kept without food or sleep for the prescribed four-and-twenty hours, and vigilantly watched. And Hopkins recommended that a hole be made in the door, through which her imps were sure to come to be fed, and that her watchers be careful to kill everything they saw—fly, spider, lice, mouse, what not; for none knew when and under what form her familiars might appear; and if by any chance they missed or could not kill them, then they might be sure that they were imps, and so another proof be indisputably established. If neither of these ways would do, then, still cross-bound, she was to be “swum.” If she sank, she was drowned; if she floated—and by putting her carefully on the water she generally would float—then she was a witch, and to be taken out and hung. For water, being the sacred element used in baptism, thus manifestly refused to hold such an accursed thing as a witch within its bosom; so that, when she swam, it was a proof that this “sacred element” rejected her for the more potent keeping of the fire. This was the explanation which, it seemed to King James the First, was a rational and religious manner of accounting for a certain physical fact.