With such powers of conjuration and sorcery as these, it is not surprising if Dr. Lamb’s character tainted that of Anne Bodenham his maid; for the very fact of their living together under the same roof was inimical enough to Anne’s reputation. We hear nothing of her for some years, beyond that she lived near New Sarum, was married to one Edward Bodenham, “clothyer,” and that she was eighty years of age at the time of her trial. So at least says Edmund Bower, in his “Doctor Lamb revived.” But her getting into trouble at all proves that she had long lived under the suspicion of commonly practising witchcraft and sorcery; for Anne Styles, the accuser, had been backwards and forwards to her on her own account scores of times, and thought nothing of it; neither was it considered wonderful when Mr. Mason, son-in-law of Richard Goddard, Anne Styles’s master, sent her to Anne Bodenham to learn now their lawsuit would turn. Bodenham, who had a knack of “foretelling things to come, and helping men to their stolen goods, and other such like feats,” expressed no surprise, but at once began her conjurations. “She took her staff, and there drew it about the house, making a kinde of a Circle, and then took a book, and carrying it over the Circle with her hands, and taking a green glasse, did lay it upon the book, and placed in the Circle an earthern Pan of Coals, wherein she threw something, which burning caused a very noisome stink, and told the Maid she should not be afraid of what she should then see, for now they would come (they are the words she used), and so calling Belzebub, Tormentor, Satan, and Lucifer appear, there suddenly arose a very high wind, which made the house shake, and presently the back door of the house flying open, there came five Spirits, as the Maid supposed, in the likenesse of ragged Boyes, some bigger than others, and ran about the House, where she had drawn the staff: and the witch threw down upon the ground crums of bread, which the Spirits picked up, and leapt over the Pan of Coals oftentimes, which she set in the midst of the Circle, and a Dog and a Cat of the witches danced with them; and after some time the witch looked again in her book, and threw some great white Seeds upon the ground, which the said Spirits picked up, and so in a short time the wind was laid and the witch going forth at the back door the Spirits vanished.” After which Anne told the girl that Mr. Mason should demand fifteen hundred pounds, and one hundred and fifty pounds per annum of Mr. Goddard, and if it was denied he was to take the law and prosecute. For all which Anne Bodenham received the sum of three shillings: little enough too, considering the charges she must have been at for noisome roots and magic lanthorns, not to speak of the chance of being haled off to prison whenever the maid Anne Styles might choose to accuse her.
Another time Anne Styles was sent to her by Mrs. Goddard, to find where was hidden the poison which she said her two young step-daughters were designing to give her, but which Anne Styles herself had bought, as she said, by the witch’s request. This Anne Bodenham denied. The witch took her stick as before, going through the same forms of conjuration; when on her adjuring “Belzebub, Tormentor, Lucifer, Satan,” to appear, there came out of the mist first a little boy, who then turned into a snake, and then into “a shagged dog with great eyes, which went about in the Circle.” And after she had burnt her noisome herbs again, and looked in her Magic book—her Book of Charms as she called it—she took a glass and showed in that “Mistress Sarah Goddard’s Chamber, the colour of the Curtains, and the bed turned up the wrong way, and under that part of the bed where the Bolster laye she shewed the poison in a white paper.” It was no discredit to maid or witch that this poisoning matter was found a mere suspicion and delusion, and that the young ladies never designed to poison their mother-in-law; though she, on the other hand, sent to Bodenham for charms and poisons against them. This time Anne got vervain and dill, which the little ragged boys (spectres, or spirits, or imps) gathered for her, in return for which she threw them bread which they ate, dancing about, then vanished on their mistress reading in her book. The witch gave the maid the leaves powdered, and dried—one packet of each—while, in a third packet, she put the parings of her nails; all of which the maid was to give to her mistress. The powder was to be put into Mistresses Sarah and Anne Goddard’s drink or broth, to give them hideous indigestion rather too coarsely expressed for modern reading; the leaves were to rub about the rim of the pot, to make their teeth fall out of their heads; and the paring of the nails to make them drunk and mad. But Mrs. Goddard only laughed when she got these charms, and said “they were brave things:” she did not use them, luckily for her; though the young ladies would not have been much the worse, save for the white poison before mentioned.
Anne Bodenham had taken a great fancy to this servant girl, and wanted her to live with her, telling her that she would teach her all she knew, and enable her to do as she did; asking her, too, whether she would go to London high or low: for if high she should be carried through the air and be there in two hours, if low she should be taken at Sutton’s town end, and before, “unless she had help.” When she thus sought to seduce the girl, Anne Styles asked what she could do, whereupon Bodenham incontinently appeared in the form of a great black cat, and lay along by the chimney; but the girl being much frightened, she appeared in her own shape again, and tempted her no more. But first, before she would let her go, she made her swear to seal with her body and blood a vow that she would never discover what she had seen; so she took her forefinger and pricked it, and filled a pen with the blood, and made her write in a book, one of the imps—like “great boys with long shagged black hair,” this time—having his hand or claw on the witch’s, while Anne Styles wrote. And when she had done writing, the witch said “Amen,” and the maid said “Amen,” and the spirits said “Amen” each: and the spirit gave the witch a bit of silver for the maid, which he first bit. The maid’s hand touched his, and she found that his was cold. Then Bodenham stuck two pins in her head-dress, which she bid her keep, and be gone; saying, “I will vex the Gentlewoman well enough, as I did the man in Clarington Park; which I made walk about with a bundle of Pales on his back all night in a pond of water, and could not lay them down till the next morning.” The piece of silver, and the hole in her forefinger, the maid showed the judge and jury in the trial; and both were held to be conclusive evidence against Dr. Lamb’s unfortunate “Darling.” How far Anne Styles may be believed is not difficult to determine; for as to the conjurations about poisoning Mrs. Goddard, it came out that she, the maid, had gone to the apothecary’s for an ounce of arsenic; and then set abroad the report that the two young ladies had bought it for the purpose of poisoning their step-mother. As the young ladies were not disposed to sit down quietly under this suspicion, they had the report sifted to the bottom, and Anne Styles fled in fear; which was the meaning of the witch’s demanding how she would like to go to London—high or low—by witch’s art, or justice’s power. Mr. Chandler, Mr. Goddard’s son-in-law, pursued her, and overtook her at Sutton-town end; when, to save herself from the unpleasant consequences of her various misdeeds, beginning with stealing a silver spoon and ending with buying arsenic, she made this “confession,” which was safety to her but death to old Anne. Anne earnestly and passionately denied every word the girl said: whereupon Anne Styles, to give greater colour to her story, fell into fits, so strong that six men could not hold her. She was drawn up high into the air—so at least runs the report—her feet as high as the spectators’ breasts; and she had scuffles with a black man with no head, who came and tumbled her about, as a little boy deposed. The little boy was sleeping in the same room with her, and he said that the black spirit came to her, and wanted her soul, but the maid answered her soul was none of hers to give; that he had got her blood already, but should never have her soul; and after a tumbling and throwing of her about rarely, he vanished away. At another time the witch was brought to the maid suddenly, when she instantly closed her eyes and fell back in so deep a sleep that they could not by any means awaken her; but so soon as the witch had gone, she woke up of herself, and was quite well. Anne Bodenham was condemned to die, and there was no help for her; but when sentence was passed, Anne Styles fell to bitter weeping and wailing, lamenting her own wickedness, and willing that the witch should be reprieved, if possible to the law. This was taken as a sign of her sweet and loving Christian spirit of forgiveness; we, who read such signs more clearly by the light of a better knowledge, know that it meant simply the weak pity of a selfish conscience, grieving for its sin, yet afraid to retract and make amends. Beside all this evidence, and its lies, Anne Bodenham had a tame toad which she wore in a green bag round her neck; and she had a great deal of natural clairvoyance and mesmeric power; and she was evidently a highly superstitious woman, who believed in her own powers, and was not unwilling to aid them by a little extra supernaturalism and good mechanical tricks. But she would confess to no witchcraft; knew nothing of a Red Book half written over in blood, which red book with its bloody writing contained a catalogue of those who had sold themselves to the devil; though she acknowledged that she had a Book of Charms, much as a servant maid of to-day might have a Book of Dreams: and that she could say the Creed backwards as well as forwards; and that she sometimes prayed to the planet Jupiter. The time-honoured belief in astrology and the power of the planets might well linger in the brain of an old country woman, who had a smattering of knowledge far beyond her station, and who had dabbled in mechanics and the art of conjuring; who could not, moreover, understand her own sensitive condition; and who had the alternative, as one of the witnesses said, of passing for a witch or a woman of God. The judge and jury had a very distinct idea as to which category she ought to be placed in; and fully believed what James Bower reports, that she could turn herself into a “mastive Dog, a black Lyon, a white Bear, a Woolf, a Monkey, a Horse, a Bull, and a Calf.” Such a woman as this had no business here on this solid earth, so she was hanged at Salisbury, 1653, dying very hard and completely crazed. Before the hour came she wrote a letter to her husband desiring him never to live in his own house again; and she asked the woman who was to “shroud” her, to root up all her garden herbs and flowers when she should be dead; and she clamoured for a knife to stick into her heart; and she wanted to die drunk, calling for beer on her way to execution, and giving her gaolers much trouble to hold her in at all; and she would have no psalm sung, and no prayer read, and would forgive none of them, but cursed them all fiercely as she stood on the rungs of the ladder despairing and defying. So miserably she died, poor old wretch! and Anne Styles never looked up again into the fair face of heaven without the stain of blood across her hand, and the brand of Cain on her brow.
THE SPRIGHTLY LAD OF SOMERSETSHIRE.[143]
One certain Sunday afternoon, in November 1657, Richard Jones, “a sprightly youth of twelve,” living at Shepton Mallet, in Somersetshire, being left at home alone, and looking abroad as sprightly youth will, saw an old woman of the place, by name Jane Brooks, look in at the window. He went to the door to see what she wanted, when she asked him to give her a piece of “close bread,” and she would give him an apple. He did so, and she thanked him, stroked him down the right side, shook him by the hand, and bade him good night. When the father and our coz. Gibson came back, they found the sprightly youth ill, and complaining of pain in the right side. He continued in the same state through the night, and on the following day became much worse, falling into fits of speechlessness, &c., immediately after having roasted and eaten the apple which Jane Brooks had given him. He then told the father that an old woman of the place, name unknown but person remembered, had stroked his right side, and thus had caused his illness; whereupon his father decided that all the women of Shepton Mallet should come to see him, and that in case he was in his fit, and not able to speak when the true witch came, he should give a “jogg,” which would be sufficiently expressive. All the women of Shepton Mallet were brought in by turns; but the boy remained quiet until Jane Brooks appeared, when he fell into a fit, and was for some time unable to see or speak. Recovering himself, “he gave his father the Item,” and drew towards Jane. She was standing behind her two sisters, but the boy singled her out and put his hand upon her; which the father seeing, he flew on the poor creature, scratched her face “above her breath,” and drew blood. After this rather rough manner of exorcism, Master Richard Jones cried out that he was well, and condescended to remain well for seven or eight days. But at the end of this time, Alice Coward, sister to Jane, happening to meet him and to say, “How do you do, my Honey?” he fell ill again, and “cried out” on them without intermission. One Sunday he was in his fits, his father and cousin Gibson with him as usual, when he suddenly exclaimed that he “saw Jane Brooks there”—pointing to the wall. Cousin Gibson at once struck a knife into the spot; whereupon the sprightly youth cried, “O father, couz Gibson hath cut Jane Brooks’s hand, and ’tis Bloody.” The father and Gibson on this went to the constable, “a discreet Person,” and telling him what had happened, took him with them to Jane’s house, where they found her sitting on a stool, with one hand over the other. After a few questions they drew her hand away, and found that which was underneath all bloody; which appearance she explained away as well as she could, by saying that it was scratched with a great pin. This kind of thing going on for some time, the pitiful plot grew ripe for execution, and on the 8th of December Jane Brooks and her sister, Alice Coward, were taken to Castle Cary to be examined by the justices, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Cary. Here Richard performed all the usual tricks of the bewitched, lying speechless and motionless while the suspected women were in the room; springing up into tetanic fits if they laid their hands upon him, or so much as looked towards him; bringing on himself, by his own will, convulsive fits and catalepsy, and many of the more violent symptoms of hysteria, and insisting that the two women came constantly to see him—as apparitions—“their Hands cold, their Eyes staring, and their Lips and Cheeks looking pale.” “In this manner on a Thursday about Noon, the Boy being newly laid in his Bed, Jane Brooks and Alice Coward appeared to him, and told him that what they had begun they could not perform. But if he would say no more of it, they would give him Money, and so put a Twopence into his Pocket. After which they took him out of his Bed and laid him on the ground and vanished, and the Boy was found by those that came next into the Room lying on the Floor as if he had been dead.” This twopence had odd properties. When put upon the fire and made hot, the boy fell ill; when taken out and cooled, he was all right again. The trick was tried in the presence of many, and was found to answer admirably. Between the 8th of December and the 17th of February, he practised another variation of the same air. “Divers persons at sundry times” heard a croaking, as of a toad, proceed from the boy, and though they held a candle to his face they could not discern any movement of tongue, teeth, or lips. And this croaking as of a toad repeated incessantly, “Jane Brooks, Alice Coward, Jane Brooks, Alice Coward.” On the 25th of February he performed his greatest feat of all; or was reported to have done so—which did quite as well in those days; for Richard Isles’s wife said she saw him raised up from the ground, mounting gradually higher and higher till he was carried full thirty yards over the garden wall, when, falling at last at one Jordan’s door, he was there found as if dead. Coming to himself, he declared that Jane Brooks had taken him by the arm, and carried him up, as Isles’s wife had seen; which fact was told and believed in as a fearful instance of her malicious and wicked sorcery against the sprightly youth. At another time, as many as nine people at once saw him hanging from a beam, his hands placed flat against the wood, and his whole body raised two or three feet from the ground. He continued to play these extraordinary tricks from the 15th of November to the 10th of March; when, being much wasted and worn, it was deemed advisable to save his life if yet there might be time. Jane Brooks was sent to gaol, condemned, and hanged at Charde assizes, March 26th, 1658; and Richard Jones, having no longer any inducement to act the possessed, consented to remain with his feet on the ground and his head in the air, according to the laws of nature and Newton, and took no more fits, real or simulated, to extort compassion or obtain revenge.
THE WITCHES OF THE RESTORATION.
The poor witches were always seeing troublous times. At about the time of the Lord Protector’s death one was hanged in Norwich and several in Cornwall. In 1659 two suffered at Lancaster, for crimes which I cannot discover; while in 1660, on the 14th of May, the Restoration had its victims in the persons of a widow, her two daughters, and a man, who were carried to Worcester gaol on the double charge of witchcraft and high treason. For the eldest daughter had been heard to say that if they had not been taken the king would never have come to England: which was enough to frighten all the court into fits. And when they were taken, and tried, and condemned, she said further that “though he now doth come, yet he shall not live long but shall die as ill a death as they” adding that had they not been taken “they would have made corn like pepper:” that is, they would have blighted it. As there were many other charges against them, they were swum: when they floated like ducks—or witches; and then they were searched: when the man was found to have five “bigges,” two of the women three, but the eldest daughter only one. When first searched, none of these marks were visible on any of the women, whereat the inquisitors were advised to put them flat on their backs and keep their mouths open, until they should appear; which advice was taken, with the happiest and most palpable results.
THE WITCH-FINDER FOUND
Sometimes knavery defeated itself, though unhappily not often, as in the case of the famous witch-finder Mother Baker[144] and the young maid Stuppeny, of New Romsey in Kent. The young maid Stuppeny was sick, and as sickness in those days never meant the natural consequence of filthy habits, filthy food, and filthy habitations, but was by the supernatural devilry of witches and wizards, the parents concluded that their young maid must be bewitched, so set off to old Mother Baker to learn who was the guilty person. Old Mother Baker asked whom they suspected? and they mentioned a near neighbour of theirs—particulars not given. “Yes,” says the hag, “it is she, and she has made a heart of wax, which she daily pricks with pins and knitting-needles, and which is now concealed in the house, for the destruction of the young maid your daughter.” So the parents Stuppeny searched their house, but found no heart of wax; whereupon old Mother Baker, with big pockets to her sides, said she herself must search. And she did search, and turned out the charm from the very spot where she said it was. But certain prying neighbours, whose eyes were sharp and wits clear, had watched old Baker and her pockets; and as she laid the image in a corner that had been most diligently searched and looked into, her cheat was discovered, and the anonymous wretch living next door escaped, while Mother Baker suffered the penalties awarded in Scot’s time to cozenage and deceit with intent to defraud or do ill.