[109] Stearne, 13, 14.
CHAPTER IX.
Witchcraft during the Commonwealth and Protectorate.
We have, in the last chapter, traced the history of witchcraft in England through the Hopkins episode of 1645-1647. From the trials at Ely in the autumn of 1647 to the discoveries at Berwick in the summer of 1649 there was a lull in the witch alarms. Then an epidemic broke out in the north of England. We shall, in this chapter, describe that epidemic and shall carry the narrative of the important cases from that time to the Restoration. In doing this we shall mark off two periods, one from 1649 to 1653, when the executions were still numerous, and a second from 1653 to 1659 when there was a rapid falling off, not only in death penalties for witchcraft, but even in accusations. To be sure, this division is somewhat artificial, for there was a gradual decline of the attack throughout the two periods, but the year 1653 more nearly than any other marks the year when that decline became visible.
The epidemic of 1649 came from Scotland. Throughout the year the northern kingdom had been "infested."[1] From one end of that realm to the other the witch fires had been burning. It was not to be supposed that they should be suddenly extinguished when they reached the border. In July the guild of Berwick had invited a Scotchman who had gained great fame as a "pricker" to come to Berwick, and had promised him immunity from all violence.[2] He came and proceeded to apply his methods of detection. They rested upon the assumption that a witch had insensible spots on her body, and that these could be found by driving in a pin. By such processes he discovered thirty witches, who were sent to gaol. Some of them made confessions but refused to admit that they had injured any one.[3] On the contrary, they had assisted Cromwell, so some of the more ingenious of them claimed, at the battle of Preston.[4] Whether this helped their case we do not know, for we are not told the outcome. It seems almost certain, however, that few, if any, of them suffered death. But the pricker went back to Scotland with thirty pounds, the arrangement having been that he was to receive twenty shillings a witch.
He was soon called upon again. In December of the same year the town of Newcastle underwent a scare. Two citizens, probably serjeants, applied the test with such success that in March (1649/50) a body of citizens petitioned the common council that some definite steps be taken about the witches. The council accepted the suggestion and despatched two serjeants, doubtless the men already engaged in the work, to Scotland to engage the witch-pricker. He was brought to Newcastle with the definite contract that he was to have his passage going and coming and twenty shillings apiece for every witch he found. The magistrates did everything possible to help him. On his arrival in Newcastle they sent the bellman through the town inviting every one to make complaints.[5] In this business-like way they collected thirty women at the town hall, stripped them, and put them to the pricking test. This cruel, not to say indelicate, process was carried on with additions that must have proved highly diverting to the base-minded prickers and onlookers.[6] Fourteen women and one man were tried (Gardiner says by the assizes) and found guilty. Without exception they asserted their innocence; but this availed not. In August of 1650 they were executed on the town moor[7] of Newcastle.[8]
The witchfinder continued his activities in the north, but a storm was rising against him. Henry Ogle, a late member of Parliament, caused him to be jailed and put under bond to answer the sessions.[9] Unfortunately the man got away to Scotland, where he later suffered death for his deeds, probably during the Cromwellian regime in that country.[10]
We have seen that Henry Ogle had driven the Scotch pricker out of the country. He participated in another witch affair during this same period which is quite as much to his credit. The children of George Muschamp, in Northumberland, had been troubled for two years (1645-1647) with strange convulsions.[11] The family suspected Dorothy Swinow, who was the wife of Colonel Swinow. It seems that the colonel's wife had, at some time, spoken harshly to one of the children. No doubt the sick little girl heard what they said. At any rate her ravings began to take the form of accusations against the suspected woman. The family consulted John Hulton, "who could do more then God allowed," and he accused Colonel Swinow's wife. But unfortunately for him the child had been much better during his presence, and he too was suspected. The mother of the children now rode to a justice of the peace, who sent for Hulton, but not for Mistress Swinow. Then the woman appealed to the assizes, but the judge, "falsely informed," took no action. Mrs. Muschamp was persistent, and in the town of Berwick she was able, at length, to procure the arrest of the woman she feared. But Dorothy Swinow was not without friends, who interfered successfully in her behalf. Mrs. Muschamp now went to a "counsellor," who refused to meddle with the matter, and then to a judge, who directed her to go to Durham. She did so and got a warrant; but it was not obeyed. She then procured a second warrant, and apparently succeeded in getting an indictment. But it did her little good: Dorothy Swinow was not apprehended.
One can hardly refrain from smiling a little at the unhappy Mrs. Muschamp and her zealous assistants, the "physician" and the two clergymen. But her poor daughters grew worse, and the sick child, who had before seen angels in her convulsions, now saw the colonel's wife and cried out in her ravings against the remiss judge.[12] The case is at once pathetic and amusing, but it has withal a certain significance. It was not only Mrs. Swinow's social position that saved her, though that doubtless carried weight. It was the reluctance of the north-country justices to follow up accusations. Not that they had done with trials. Two capital sentences at Durham and another at Gateshead, although perhaps after-effects of the Scotch pricker's activity, showed that the witch was still feared; but such cases were exceptions. In general, the cases resulted in acquittals. We shall see, in another chapter, that the discovery which alarmed Yorkshire and Northumberland in 1673 almost certainly had this outcome; and the cases tried at that time formed the last chapter in northern witchcraft.