State Trials for Witchcraft
Early Laws against Witchcraft—The Essex Witches—The Devon Witches—The Bury St. Edmunds Case—Bewitched Children—The Scepticism of Serjeant Keeling—Evidence of Sir Thomas Browne—The Judge’s Charge—The End of it All—The Trial of Richard Hathaway—The Comic Side of Superstition—A Rogue’s Punishment—A Word in Conclusion.
I propose to examine the Witchcraft cases in Howell’s twenty-one bulky volumes of State Trials. The general subject, even in England, is too vast for detailed treatment here; also it is choked with all manner of absurdities. In a trial some of these are pared away: you know what the people saw, or believed they saw, and you have the declarations of the witches themselves. Only five cases, all between 1616 (13 Jac. I.) and 1702 (1 Anne) are reported. The selection is capricious, for some famous prosecutions as that of the Lancashire witches are omitted, but it is fairly representative.
In the early times Witchcraft and sorcery were left to the Church. In 1541, 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8, made both felony without “benefit of clergy;” and by the 1 Jac. I. c. 12, all persons invoking any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any Witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts, shall be guilty of felony without “benefit of clergy,” and suffer death. King James’s views on Witchcraft and his skill (whereon he greatly plumed himself) as witch-finder are famed. Royal influence went hand-in-hand with popular superstition. In less than a century and a half, legislative if not vulgar ideas were altered, and in 1736, by 9 Geo. II. c. 5, the laws against Witchcraft were swept away, though charlatans professing the occult sciences were still punished as cheats.
I pass as of little interest Howell’s first case, that of Mary Smith, in 1616. More worthy of note are the proceedings against the Essex witches, some twenty in number, condemned at the Chelmsford Sessions on July 29, 1645, before the Earl of Warwick and other Justices. One noted witch was Elizabeth Clarke to whom the devil had appeared “in the shape of a proper gentleman with a laced band, having the whole proportion of a man.” She had certain imps, whom she called Jamara (“a white dogge with red spots”), Vinegar Tom, Hoult, and Sack and Sugar. So far the information of Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, gent., who further said that the same evening whereon the accused confessed those marvels to him, “he espied a white thing about the bignesse of a kitlyn,” which bit a piece out of his greyhound, and in his own yard that very night “he espied a black thing proportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry-bed, and fixing the eyes on this informant.”
John Sterne, gent., had equal wonders of imps the size of small dogs, and how Sack and Sugar were like to do him hurt. ’Twere well, said the malevolent Elizabeth, “that this informant were so quick, otherwise the said impe had soone skipped upon his face, and perchance had got into his throate, and then there would have been a feast of toades in this informant’s belly.” The witch Clarke ascribed her undoing to Anne Weste, widow, here usually called Old Beldam Weste, who, coming upon her as she was picking up a few sticks, and seeming to pity her for “her lamenesse (having but one leg) and her poverty,” promised to send her a little kitten to assist her. Sure enough, a few nights after two imps appeared, who vowed to “help her to an husband who should maintain her ever after.” A country justice’s notions of evidence are not supposed to be exact even to-day; what they were then let the information of Robert Tayler, also of Manningtree, show. It seems Clarke had accused one Elizabeth Gooding as a confederate. Gooding was refused credit at Tayler’s for half a pound of cheese, whereupon “she went away muttering and mumbling to herself, and within a few hours came again with money and bought a pound of cheese of this informant.” That very night Tayler’s horse fell grievously ill and four farriers were gravelled to tell what ailed it, but this portentous fact was noted: “the belly of the said horse would rumble and make a noyse as a foule chimney set on fire.” In four days it was dead. Tayler had also heard that certain confessed witches had “impeached the said Elizabeth Gooding for killing of this said horse,” moreover Elizabeth kept company with notorious witches—after which scepticism was scarce permissible. Rebecca Weste, a prisoner awaiting trial in Colchester, confessed how at a witches’ meeting the devil appeared to her in the shape of a dog and kissed her. In less than six months he came again and promised to marry her. “Shee said he kissed her, but was as cold as clay, and married her that night in this manner: he tooke her by the hand and led her about the chamber and promised to be a loving husband to death, and to avenge her of her enemies.”
One Rawbood had taken a house over the head of Margaret Moon, another of the accused, with highly unpleasant consequences. Thus, Mrs. Rawbood, though a “very tydy and cleanly woman, sitting upon a block, after dinner with another neighbour, a little before it was time to go to church upon an Easter Day, the said Rawbood’s wife was on a sudden so filled with lice that they might have been swept off her clothes with a stick; and this informant saith he did see them, and that they were long and lean, and not like other lice.” More gruesome were the confessions of Rebecca Jones, of Osyth. One fine day some twenty-five years past she, a servant lass at Much-Clacton, was summoned by a knock at the door, where she saw “a very handsome young man, as shee then thought, but now shee thinks it was the devil.” Politely inquiring how she did, he desired to see her left wrist, which being shown him, he pulled out a pin “from this examinant’s owne sleeve, and pricked her wrist twice, and there came out a drop of bloud, which he took off with the top of his finger, and so departed”—leaving poor Rebecca’s heart all in a flutter. About four months afterwards as she was going to market to sell butter, a “man met with her, being in a ragged state, and having such great eyes that this examinant was very much afraid of him.” He presented her with three things like to “moules,” which she afterwards used to destroy her neighbours’ cattle, and now and again her neighbours themselves. In evidence against other suspects there was mention of a familiar called Elimanzer, who was fed with milk pottage, and of imps called Wynowe, Jeso, Panu, with many other remarkable particulars.
The foregoing was collected before trial as information upon oath; but this testimony of Sir Thomas Bowes, knight, was given from the bench during the trial of Anne Weste, whom it concerned. He reported that an honest man of Manningtree passing Anne Weste’s door at the very witching hour of night, in bright moonlight saw four things like black rabbits emerge. He caught one of them, and beat the head of it against his stick, “intending to beat out the braines of it,” failing in which benevolent design, he next tried to tear off its head, “and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wooll;” then he went to a spring to drown it, but at every step he fell down, yet he managed to creep to the water, under which he held the thing “a good space.” Thinking it was drowned he let go, whereupon “it sprang out of the water into the aire, and so vanished away.” There was but one end possible for people who froze the rustic soul with such pranks. Each and all were soon dangling from the gallows.
The case of the Devon witches tried at Exeter in August 1682 is much like the Essex business. The informations are stuffed with grotesque horrors, yet it is hard to believe that the accused—three poor women from Bideford, two of them widows—had been convicted but for their own confessions, which are full of copious and minute details of their dealings with Satan. Going to their death, they were worried by Mr. H——, a nonconformist preacher and (as is evident) a very pestilent fellow. “Did you pass through the keyhole of the door, or was the door open?” was one query. The witch asserted that like other people she entered by the door, though “the devil did lead me upstairs.” Mr. H—— went on, “How do you know it was the devil?” “I knew it by his eyes,” she returned. Again, “Did you never ride over an arm of the sea on a cow?”—an exploit which the poor woman sturdily disclaimed. Mr. H——, a little dissatisfied, one fancies, prayed at them a while, after which two of the women were turned off the ladder. Mr. Sheriff tried his hand at the survivor: he was curious as to the shape or colour of the devil, and was answered that he appeared “in black like a bullock.” He again pressed her as to whether she went in “through the keyhole or the door,” but she alleged the more commonplace and (for a witch) unorthodox mode of entry, “and so was executed.”