We have already seen what a tangled web Mrs. Muschamp wove when she set out to imprison a colonel's wife. It would be easy to cite cases to show the same reluctance to follow up prosecution. Four women at Leicester searched Ann Chettle and found no evidence of guilt.[26] In Durham a case came up before Justice Henry Tempest.[27] Mary Sykes was accused. Sara Rodes, a child, awakening from sleep in a fright, had declared to her mother that "Sikes' wife" had come in "att a hole att the bedd feete" and taken her by the throat. Of course Sara Rodes fell ill. Moreover, the witch had been seen riding at midnight on the back of a cow and at another time flying out of a "mistall windowe." But the woman, in spite of the unfavorable opinion of the women searchers, went free. There were cases that seem to have ended the same way at York, at Leeds, and at Scarborough. They were hints of what we have already noticed, that the northern counties were changing their attitude.[28] But a case in Derbyshire deserves more attention because the justice, Gervase Bennett, was one of the members of Cromwell's council. The case itself was not in any way unusual. A beggar woman, who had been liberally supported by those who feared her, was on trial for witchcraft. Because of Bennett's close relation to the government, we should be glad to know what he did with the case, but the fact that the woman's conviction is not among the records makes it probable that she was not bound over to the assizes.[29]
We come now to examine the second of the sub-periods into which we have divided the Interregnum. We have been dealing with the interval between the war and the establishment of the Protectorate, a time that shaded off from the dark shadows of internecine struggle towards the high light of steady peace and security. By 1653 the equilibrium of England had been restored. Cromwell's government was beginning to run smoothly. The courts were in full swing. None of those conditions to which we have attributed the spread of the witch alarms of the Civil Wars were any longer in operation. It is not surprising, then, that the Protectorate was one of the most quiet periods in the annals of witchcraft. While the years 1648-1653 had witnessed thirty executions in England, the period of the Protectorate saw but half a dozen, and three of these fell within the somewhat disturbed rule of Richard Cromwell.[30] In other words, there was a very marked falling off of convictions for witchcraft, a falling off that had indeed begun before the year 1653. Yet this diminution of capital sentences does not by any means signify that the realm was rid of superstition. In Middlesex, in Somerset and Devon, in York, Northumberland, and Cumberland, the attack upon witches on the part of the people was going on with undiminished vigor. If no great discoveries were made, if no nests of the pestilent creatures were unearthed, the justices of the peace were kept quite as busy with examinations as ever before.
To be sure, an analysis of cases proves that a larger proportion of those haled to court were light offenders, "good witches" whose healing arts had perhaps been unsuccessful, dealers in magic who had aroused envy or fear. The court records of Middlesex and York are full of complaints against the professional enchanters. In most instances they were dismissed. Now and then a woman was sent to the house of correction,[31] but even this punishment was the exception.
Two other kinds of cases appeared with less frequency. We have one very clear instance at Wakefield, in York, where a quarrel between two tenant farmers over their highway rights became so bitter that a chance threat uttered by the loser of the lawsuit, "It shall be a dear day's work for you," occasioned an accusation of witchcraft.[32] In another instance the debt of a penny seems to have been the beginning of a hatred between two impecunious creatures, and this brought on a charge.[33]
The most common type of case, of course, was that where strange disease or death played a part. In Yorkshire, in Hertfordshire, and in Cornwall there were trials based upon a sort of evidence with which the reader is already quite familiar. It was easy for the morbid mother of a dead child to recall or imagine angry words spoken to her shortly before the death of her offspring. It was quite as natural for a sick child to be alarmed at the sight of a visitor and go into spasms. There was no fixed rule, however, governing the relation of the afflicted children and the possible witches. When William Wade was named, Elizabeth Mallory would fly into fits.[34] When Jane Brooks entered the room, a bewitched youth of Chard would become hysterical.[35] It was the opposite way with a victim in Exeter,[36] who remained well only so long as the witch who caused the trouble stayed with him.[37]
Closely related to these types of evidence was what has been denominated spectral evidence, a form of evidence recurrent throughout the history of English witchcraft. In the time of the Protectorate we have at least three cases of the kind. The accused woman appeared to the afflicted individual now in her own form, again in other shapes, as a cat, as a bee, or as a dog.[38] The identification of a particular face in the head of a bee must have been a matter of some difficulty, but there is no ground for supposing that any objection was made to this evidence in court. At all events, the testimony went down on the official records in Yorkshire. In Somerset the Jane Brooks case,[39] already referred to, called forth spectral evidence in a form that must really have been very convincing. When the bewitched boy cried out that he saw the witch on the wall, his cousin struck at the place, upon which the boy cried out, "O Father, Coz Gibson hath cut Jane Brooks's hand, and 'tis bloody." Now, according to the story, the constable proceeded to the woman's house and found her hand cut.
As to the social status of the people involved in the Protectorate trials there is little to say, other than has been said of many earlier cases. By far the larger number of those accused, as we have already pointed out, were charmers and enchanters, people who made a penny here and twopence there, but who had at best a precarious existence. Some of them, no doubt, traded on the fear they inspired in their communities and begged now a loaf of bread and now a pot of beer. They were the same people who, when begging and enchanting failed, resorted to stealing.[40] In one of the Yorkshire depositions we have perhaps a hint of another class from which the witches were recruited. Katherine Earle struck a Mr. Frank between the shoulders and said, "You are a pretty gentleman; will you kisse me?" When the man happened to die this solicitation assumed a serious aspect.[41]
Witchcraft was indeed so often the outcome of lower-class bickering that trials involving the upper classes seem worthy of special record. During the Protectorate there were two rather remarkable trials. In 1656 William and Mary Wade were accused of bewitching the fourteen-year-old daughter of Elizabeth Mallory of Studley Hall. The Mallorys were a prominent family in Yorkshire. The grandfather of the accusing child had been a member of Parliament and was a well known Royalist colonel. When Mistress Elizabeth declared that her fits would not cease until Mary Wade had said that she had done her wrong, Mary Wade was persuaded to say the words. Elizabeth was well at once, but Mary withdrew her admission and Elizabeth resumed her fits, indeed "she was paste holdinge, her extreamaty was such." She now demanded that the two Wades should be imprisoned, and when they were "both in holde" she became well again. They were examined by a justice of the peace, but were probably let off.[42]
The story of Diana Crosse at Exeter is a more pathetic one. Mrs. Crosse had once kept a girls' school—could it be that there was some connection between teaching and witchcraft?[43]—had met with misfortune, and had at length been reduced to beggary. We have no means of knowing whether the suspicion of witchcraft antedated her extreme poverty or not, but it seems quite clear that the former school-teacher had gained an ill name in the community. She resented bitterly the attitude of the people, and at one time seems to have appealed to the mayor. It was perhaps by this very act that she focussed the suspicion of her neighbors. To go over the details of the trial is not worth while. Diana Crosse probably escaped execution to eke out the remainder of her life in beggary.[44]
The districts of England affected by the delusion during this period have already been indicated. While there were random cases in Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Cumberland, and Northumberland, by far the greatest activity seems to have been in Middlesex, Cornwall, and Yorkshire. To a layman it looks as if the north of England had produced the greater part of its folk-lore. Certain it is that the witch stories of Yorkshire, as those of Lancaster at another time, by their mysterious and romantic elements made the trials of the south seem flat, stale, and unprofitable. Yet they rarely had as serious results.