[148] Editor’s Note.—These are also given in full, in French, with an English translation, by Mr. J. Linwood Pitts, F.S.A., (Normandy), in his Witchcraft and Devil-Lore in the Channel Islands, etc., 1886.
Trials for Witchcraft, and Confessions of Witches.
Editor’s Note.—The documents which follow are translated from the Records of the Royal Court preserved at the Greffe. Sir Edgar MacCulloch had copied out the depositions of the witnesses on loose sheets of paper, evidently meaning to incorporate them into his book. The “Confession of the Witches” in his MS. follows his essay on Witchcraft.
15th May, 1581.
Katherine Eustace and her daughter were accused by common consent of practising the art of witchcraft in the island.
The wife of Collas Cousin deposed that having refused to give milk to the accused, saying that there were poorer people to whom she would rather give, her cow then gave blood instead of milk.
Johan Le Roux deposed that having been seized with great pains in his knee, he believed himself to be bewitched by Katherine Eustace, so his wife went to the latter and threatened to denounce her to the Royal Court; after that he got better.
28th October, 1581.
Robert Asheley, found dead in the garden behind St. Peter Port parsonage, suspected of having committed suicide by shooting himself with an arquebus. This having been proved according to the law, the Court, after hearing the speech made by Her Majesty’s Procureur, found that the said Robert Asheley shall be carried to some unfrequented spot and there buried, a heap of stones being placed on his body,[149] and thus he shall be deprived of burial in the spot where Christian remains are placed; and that all his goods shall be confiscate to Her Majesty the Queen.
[149] Editor’s Note.—See in “Hamlet,” where the priest refuses Christian burial to Ophelia as a suicide, and commands:—“Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown upon her.”