CHAPTER XX.
Elizabeth Horner—Pardons for Witchcraft—A Witch taken in London—Sarah Mordike—An Impostor convicted—Case of Jane Wenham—The Last Witch hanged in England.
Hutchinson gives an account of a very curious case of witchcraft in 1696:
‘Elizabeth Horner was tried before the Lord Chief Justice Holt at Exeter. Three Children of William Bovet were thought to have been bewitched by her, whereof one was dead. It was deposed that another had her Legs twisted, and yet from her Hands and Knees, she would spring five Foot high. The children vomited Pins, and were bitten (if the Depositions were true) and pricked, and pinched, the Marks appearing. The Children said Bess Horner’s Head would come off from her Body, and go into their Bellies. The Mother of the Children deposed, that one of them walked up a smooth plaistered Wall, till her Feet were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it. This, she said, she did five or six times, and laughed and said, Bess Horner held her up. This poor Woman had something like a Nipple on her Shoulder, which the Children said was sucked by a Toad. Many other odd things were deposed, but the Jury brought her in Not Guilty and no Inconvenience hath followed from her Acquittal.’
She was lucky, not only inasmuch as the belief in witchcraft was on the wane, as also to have been tried by so enlightened a judge as Sir John Holt, of whom the story is told (of which, however, I can find no authentication) that a witch was once brought before him, and a charm, written on parchment, was adduced against her. This charm, which consisted of a line or two of Greek verse, Sir John recognised as having been written by himself in his student days at Oxford to cure a poor woman’s daughter of the ague.
But although the majority of so-called witches were executed after trial and sentence, all were not, for we find in the Calendars of State Papers several instances of pardons:
1597. 30 Ap. Pardon for Elizabeth Melton, late of Collingham, co. York, condemned for witchcraft.
1597. 3 May. Pardon to Alice Brerely of Castleton, co. Lanc., spinster, condemned for killing Jas. Kirshaw and Rob. Scolefield by witchcraft.
1604. 16 Ap. Grant to Christian, wife of Thomas Weech, co. Norfolk, of pardon for witchcraft.
She was one of the extremely fortunate, for she was again accused of this crime.