‘On Whitsun Eve in the morning, she had eight hours bitter torment. In the afternoone, her mother being abroad, left her Husband’s Brother’s Daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Muschamp with her, who made signes to her to carry her into the Garden, in her mother’s absence; her Cozen, casting a mantle about her, gave her her desire, and sate in the Garden with her on her knee; who, in the bringing down, had so little strength in her neck, that her head hung wagging downe; but was not set a quarter of an houre, till showing some signes to her Cozen, bolted off her knee, ran thrice about the Garden, expressing a shrill voyce, but did not speake presently: she that was brought down in this sad condition came up stairs on her owne legs.’
However, this improvement did not last long; she had more illnesses, and in one of them she made signs that she wished to write; so ‘they layd paper on her brest, and put a pen with inke in her hand, and she, not moving her eyes, writ, Jo. Hu. Do. Swo. have been the death of one deare friend, consume another, and torment mee.’ The wiseacres puzzled over this, and at last came to the conclusion that Mistress Dorothy Swinnow, then wife to Col. Swinnow, who subsequently died, had bewitched her. At another time this Margaret Muschamp wrote the same words with the addition, ‘two drops of his or her bloud would save my life; if I have it not, I am undone; for seven yeares to be tormented before death come.’
On this they sent to one John Hutton, a reputed wizard, who told them that it was Mistress Swinnow who was the culprit, and he gave them two drops of his own blood, which he wiped off his arm, with the paper on which the girl had written. Returning home, they applied this remedy, in some way unstated, and ‘On Munday night she fell into a heavenly rapture, rejoycing that ever she was borne, for these two drops of blood had saved her life.’ The girl was afterwards very ill, and Dorothy Swinnow, now a widow, was arrested, and committed to prison, where the narrative leaves off, with the addition of the confession of one Margaret White, who ‘Confesseth and saith, That she hath beene the Divells servant these five yeares past, and that the Divell came to her in the likenes of a man in blew cloaths, in her owne house, and griped her fast by the hand, and told her she should never want, and gave her a nip on the shoulder, and another on her back; and confesseth her Familiar came to her in the likenesse of a black Gray-hound. She also Confesseth upon Oath that Mrs. Swinnow and her sister Jane, and herselfe were in the Divels company in her sister Jane’s house, where they did eate and drinke together, and made merry.
‘And Mrs. Swinnow, and her the sayd Margaret’s sister, with her selfe, came purposely to the house of Mr. Edward Moore of Spittle, to take away the life of Margaret Muschamp and Mary, and they were the cause of the Children’s tormenting, and that they were three several times to have taken away their lives, and especially upon St. John’s day at night gone twelve moneths: and sayth that God was above the Divell, for they could not get their desires perfected; and saith that Mrs. Swinnow would have consumed the childe that Mrs. Moore had last in her wombe, but the Lord would not permit her; and that after the childe was borne, Mrs. Swinnow was the occasion of its death; and that she and her sister were also the occasion, and had a hand in the death of the sayd child; and further confesseth that she and her sayd sister were the death of Thomas Yong of Chatton (by reason) a kill full of Oates watched against her sister’s minde; And further saith that the Divell called her sister Jane (Besse); She confesseth that her sister Jane had much troubled Richard Stanley of Chatton, and that she was the occasion of his sore leg.’
In ‘A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, Confession and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone in Kent, at the Assizes there held in July, Fryday 30, this present year 1652,’ a new feature is introduced.
‘The said Anne Ashby further confessed, that the Divell had given them a piece of flesh, which whensoever they should touch, they should thereby effect their desires.
‘That this flesh lay hid amongst grasse, in a certain place which she named, where, upon search, it was found accordingly.
‘The flesh was of a sinnewy substance, and scorched, and was seen and felt by this Observator, and reserved for publique view at the sign of the Swan in Maidstone.’
They were duly hanged, but ‘Some there were that wished rather they might be burnt to Ashes; alledging, that it was a received opinion amongst many, that the body of a witch being burnt, her bloud is prevented thereby from becomming hereditary to her Progeny in the same evill, which by hanging is not.’
However, in the case of four witches tried at Worcester on March 4, 1647,[48] they ‘received Sentance to be Burnt at the Stak all Four together.