James Grant

Elizabeth Style's Confession—Signing a Covenant with Blood—Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary Penny—Somerset Witches—Witch Oil—Power to injure Men and Cattle—Elizabeth Style sentenced to Death—Running backwards round a Church—Compact with Satan—More Mischief—Richard Hathaway's Accusation against Sarah Morduck—Women hunted in the Streets by a Mob—A Judge's Opinion of Witchcraft—Supposed Sufferer from Witchcraft prayed for in the Church, and a Subscription raised for him—Richard Hathaway convicted of falsely accusing a Woman of Witchcraft—Witch and Stolen Plate—Man Bewitched—Charm for Sore Eyes—Young Woman Bewitched—Flames issuing from a Bewitched Person's Mouth—Tormenting a Witch—Jane Wenham's Witchcrafts and Trial—The last Persons who suffered in England for Witchcraft—Long List of Persons who suffered as Witches.

Elizabeth Style, of Stoke Trister, Somersetshire, was accused, in the year 1664, by divers persons of witchcraft. She confessed before Robert Hunt, Esquire, a justice of the peace for the county, that the devil, ten years before that time, had appeared to her as a handsome young man, offered her money, said she would live gay, and have all the pleasures of the world for twelve years, if she would with her blood sign a document, binding herself to obey his laws, and give her soul over to him. She agreed to do as requested; whereupon he pricked the fourth finger of her right hand, and with a few drops of blood that issued from the wound she signed the engagement.

When she desired to do harm, Satan gave her power according to their agreement. About a month before her examination she desired him to torment Elizabeth Hall by thrusting thorns into her flesh—a request he promised to comply with. She declared that, not long before her apprehension, she, Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary Penny met the devil at night, in a common near Trister Gate. Their meeting terminated with dancing and feasting.

Similar meetings subsequently took place. Before Style and her companion witches started to midnight meetings, they anointed their foreheads with an oil given them by a spirit. They were then carried swiftly through the air. Sometimes they were present at the meetings in body, but more frequently in spirit only. The devil gave them power to injure men and cattle, either by a touch or curse. Style gave the names of many men and women in the neighbourhood who attended the meetings. The meetings being ended, the devil suddenly vanished or burnt himself in flames, and the people went home, singing "Merry we meet, merry we meet, and merry we part."

The poor miserable woman was tried before a jury of her countrymen, and found guilty of witchcraft. Sentence of death was passed on her, but she escaped punishment by the hands of an ordinary executioner, for before the day fixed for her execution she died in prison.

Alice Duke, a confederate of Elizabeth Style, being brought before Mr. Hunt for examination on a charge of witchcraft, stated that she and Anne Bishop went to the churchyard at night, and stepped backward round the church three times. In their first round they met a man in black clothes, who returned with them. In the second round they met a big black toad, which leapt into deponent's apron. As they went round the third time they met a rat, that vanished into air. Like many more witches entering into a compact with Satan, she could have her wishes and revenge. If she cursed any person or thing with "a pox," evil happened the object of her hatred.Witches were found in every part of Somerset in the seventeenth century. Hundreds of them were brought to trial; but as their reported doings, confessions, and punishments were in all essential particulars the same as those of Elizabeth Style and Alice Duke, they are unimportant here.

Richard Hathaway appeared before Lord Chief Justice Holt at the Guildford assizes in 1701, to support a charge of witchcraft against Sarah Morduck. Hathaway frequently vomited pins in great numbers, pieces of tin, nails, and small stones. He foamed at the mouth, and barked like a dog; sometimes he felt a burning sensation, and not unfrequently lay as if dead. Being convinced that Sarah Morduck caused his troubles, he scratched her "above the breath," to draw blood from her. Subsequent to this operation he recovered, and remained well for six weeks. All his afflictions returned, and the suspected witch was scratched a second time. To escape her tormentors at Southwark, she went to London; but, her fame preceding or following her, she was hunted in the streets by an infuriated mob. Hathaway pursued the unhappy woman to the great metropolis, and took her before Sir Thomas Lane, a judge who regarded witchcraft in a different light to that which the Lord Chief Justice did. Sir Thomas ordered her to be stripped, to ascertain whether she had any witch-marks; and Hathaway, still suffering, scratched her for the third time. Sarah Morduck was committed to prison as a dangerous witch. Her supposed victim, Hathaway, became an object of prayer in the churches, and subscriptions were raised to defray his charges at the assizes. In July Sarah Morduck was brought, as already stated, before Lord Chief Justice Holt, but escaped with her life, for no other reason than that the judge did not believe in witchcraft. Hathaway's conduct being inquired into, he was brought to trial, when it was ascertained that his sayings about being bewitched were false. He was therefore sentenced, by the same judge that had liberated Sarah Morduck, to imprisonment for a year, and to stand in the pillory three times as a cheat and liar.

Sending a witch to catch a witch or thief occasionally had its beneficial results. On the communion service having been stolen from a church, a wise man instructed the church-wardens how to discover the thief. They did as directed, and, true enough, the thief hastened to give himself up to justice; and, what proved better, he restored the stolen plate. One man having a child sorely afflicted with boils, consulted a wizard. By direction of the cunning man, a portion of the child's hair was cut off and thrown into the fire. This had the effect of compelling a witch to hasten to the house and confess that she had in reality brought trouble on the child. The father scratched the witch "above the breath," and the sufferer recovered.

Jane Stretton, a young woman twenty years of age, was bewitched in 1669, and consequently suffered much by flax, hair, thread, and pins gathering in her throat. Still more strange, red-hot flames issued from her mouth. A wise man's wife was suspected of bringing about the calamity. Various means were resorted to with the view of establishing her guilt. Sympathising neighbours were consulted, and one of them suggested a method that proved effectual. Foam was collected from Jane's mouth and chin, and thrown into the fire, as a charm to injure her tormentor. We are assured the expedient succeeded admirably. While the foam hissed in the flames, the witch, compelled by the operation, came into the house to confess that she alone had caused the young woman's distemper.

One of the last persons generally supposed to have been condemned to death in England for witchcraft was Jane Wenham, residing in Walkerne, a village in Hertford. For years her neighbours suspected her to be a witch. In 1712 she was tried before one of the legal tribunals, and condemned on evidence of a singular nature. It appears that she went to Matthew Gibson, a servant to John Chapman, and asked for a pennyworth of straw. He refused to give her any, and she went away muttering threats against him. Soon thereafter Gibson became like an insane man, and ran three miles along the highway, asking every one he met for a pennyworth of straw. Then he gathered all the straws he could find by the roadside and put them into his shirt, which he used as a sack. Gibson's master met Jane, and called her a witch. Offended at such an imputation, she brought Mr. Chapman before Sir Herbert Chauncey, a magistrate, on the charge of defaming her character. The magistrate recommended the pursuer and defender to submit the case to the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, that the dispute might be settled quietly. To the parson they accordingly went; and he awarded Jane one shilling of damages. The decision did not please Jane; and out of revenge, it was subsequently alleged, she bewitched the minister's servant-maid, Anne Thorne. As soon as the suspected witch had left the parsonage, the maid felt a giddiness in her head, which impelled her to run away through fields and over fences, notwithstanding her having a very sore knee. On her way she met a little old woman, who asked her where she was going. To this inquiry Anne replied, "I am going to Cromer for sticks." The little woman said it seemed unnecessary to go so far, and pointed out an oak-tree close at hand where she could get them. The little woman vanished like a spirit, and Anne returned home, in a partial state of nudity, with a quantity of sticks wrapped in her gown and apron. Mrs. Gardiner, who, like the minister, her husband, believed in witchcraft, on hearing the girl's tale, said she would burn the witch; and, suiting the action to the words, threw the sticks into the fire. The charm had the desired effect; for immediately Jane Wenham came in, and made a false statement touching the cause of her call. That did not, however, deceive the people at the parsonage, who were convinced the burning of the sticks had made her come, whether she would or not. She was apprehended on suspicion, and put to the test. The minister asked her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, but she could not say it. This being regarded as presumptive evidence of guilt, Wenham's persecutors brought her to trial. Three clergymen and thirteen other witnesses gave evidence in the case. Proof was adduced that she had by witchcraft killed cattle, taken the power from men's bodies, destroyed people's substance, turned divers persons into a state of insanity, and by her curses and evil eye had killed a child. Witnesses also swore that she had on various occasions assumed the form of a cat. The jury found Wenham guilty, and the judge condemned her to death, but, like a humane Christian, he applied and obtained a pardon for the culprit.

We now come to the last victims who suffered in England for the alleged crime of witchcraft. One Mrs. Hicks, and her little daughter nine years of age, were executed on the scaffold at Huntingdon in 1716, for the suppositious offences of raising storms and selling their souls to the devil.

With the judicial murder of this unfortunate mother and her innocent daughter we close a long list of tragedies which disgraced England for hundreds of years—which exhibits the ignorance and violence of past ages. Dr. Sprenger estimates that nine million persons have been burned or otherwise put to death as witches during the Christian epoch. For such a dreadful waste of life Catholics and Protestants were equally guilty. Any one who raised his voice on behalf of the proscribed class, ran the risk of himself being accused of sorcery, or at least of heresy. At last, in 1563, J. Weier, a physician in Germany, spoke boldly against the belief in witchcraft. Twenty years later, Reginald Scot, as already stated, wrote and spoke, not against witches, but against the absurdity of believing that such persons existed.

Happily, no longer can hysterical girls and malicious individuals give false evidence in a court of law touching the feigned crime of witchcraft; no longer can the witch-finder exert his skill; no longer can judges and jury condemn to the flames or scaffold suspected witches and wizards; and no longer can an ignorant people listen to the despairing cries—cries which neither evoked pity nor secured mercy—of victims of superstition expiring amidst blazing faggots. But yet superstition lingers amongst us, as we shall show under the head "Superstition in the Nineteenth Century."