Early Laws against Witchcraft—The Essex Witches—The Devon Witches—The Bury St. Edmunds Case—Bewitched Children—The Scepticism of Serjeant Keeling—Evidence of Sir Thomas Browne—The Judge’s Charge—The End of it All—The Trial of Richard Hathaway—The Comic Side of Superstition—A Rogue’s Punishment—A Word in Conclusion.

I propose to examine the Witchcraft cases in Howell’s twenty-one bulky volumes of State Trials. The general subject, even in England, is too vast for detailed treatment here; also it is choked with all manner of absurdities. In a trial some of these are pared away: you know what the people saw, or believed they saw, and you have the declarations of the witches themselves. Only five cases, all between 1616 (13 Jac. I.) and 1702 (1 Anne) are reported. The selection is capricious, for some famous prosecutions as that of the Lancashire witches are omitted, but it is fairly representative.

In the early times Witchcraft and sorcery were left to the Church. In 1541, 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8, made both felony without “benefit of clergy;” and by the 1 Jac. I. c. 12, all persons invoking any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any Witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts, shall be guilty of felony without “benefit of clergy,” and suffer death. King James’s views on Witchcraft and his skill (whereon he greatly plumed himself) as witch-finder are famed. Royal influence went hand-in-hand with popular superstition. In less than a century and a half, legislative if not vulgar ideas were altered, and in 1736, by 9 Geo. II. c. 5, the laws against Witchcraft were swept away, though charlatans professing the occult sciences were still punished as cheats.

I pass as of little interest Howell’s first case, that of Mary Smith, in 1616. More worthy of note are the proceedings against the Essex witches, some twenty in number, condemned at the Chelmsford Sessions on July 29, 1645, before the Earl of Warwick and other Justices. One noted witch was Elizabeth Clarke to whom the devil had appeared “in the shape of a proper gentleman with a laced band, having the whole proportion of a man.” She had certain imps, whom she called Jamara (“a white dogge with red spots”), Vinegar Tom, Hoult, and Sack and Sugar. So far the information of Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, gent., who further said that the same evening whereon the accused confessed those marvels to him, “he espied a white thing about the bignesse of a kitlyn,” which bit a piece out of his greyhound, and in his own yard that very night “he espied a black thing proportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry-bed, and fixing the eyes on this informant.”

John Sterne, gent., had equal wonders of imps the size of small dogs, and how Sack and Sugar were like to do him hurt. ’Twere well, said the malevolent Elizabeth, “that this informant were so quick, otherwise the said impe had soone skipped upon his face, and perchance had got into his throate, and then there would have been a feast of toades in this informant’s belly.” The witch Clarke ascribed her undoing to Anne Weste, widow, here usually called Old Beldam Weste, who, coming upon her as she was picking up a few sticks, and seeming to pity her for “her lamenesse (having but one leg) and her poverty,” promised to send her a little kitten to assist her. Sure enough, a few nights after two imps appeared, who vowed to “help her to an husband who should maintain her ever after.” A country justice’s notions of evidence are not supposed to be exact even to-day; what they were then let the information of Robert Tayler, also of Manningtree, show. It seems Clarke had accused one Elizabeth Gooding as a confederate. Gooding was refused credit at Tayler’s for half a pound of cheese, whereupon “she went away muttering and mumbling to herself, and within a few hours came again with money and bought a pound of cheese of this informant.” That very night Tayler’s horse fell grievously ill and four farriers were gravelled to tell what ailed it, but this portentous fact was noted: “the belly of the said horse would rumble and make a noyse as a foule chimney set on fire.” In four days it was dead. Tayler had also heard that certain confessed witches had “impeached the said Elizabeth Gooding for killing of this said horse,” moreover Elizabeth kept company with notorious witches—after which scepticism was scarce permissible. Rebecca Weste, a prisoner awaiting trial in Colchester, confessed how at a witches’ meeting the devil appeared to her in the shape of a dog and kissed her. In less than six months he came again and promised to marry her. “Shee said he kissed her, but was as cold as clay, and married her that night in this manner: he tooke her by the hand and led her about the chamber and promised to be a loving husband to death, and to avenge her of her enemies.”

One Rawbood had taken a house over the head of Margaret Moon, another of the accused, with highly unpleasant consequences. Thus, Mrs. Rawbood, though a “very tydy and cleanly woman, sitting upon a block, after dinner with another neighbour, a little before it was time to go to church upon an Easter Day, the said Rawbood’s wife was on a sudden so filled with lice that they might have been swept off her clothes with a stick; and this informant saith he did see them, and that they were long and lean, and not like other lice.” More gruesome were the confessions of Rebecca Jones, of Osyth. One fine day some twenty-five years past she, a servant lass at Much-Clacton, was summoned by a knock at the door, where she saw “a very handsome young man, as shee then thought, but now shee thinks it was the devil.” Politely inquiring how she did, he desired to see her left wrist, which being shown him, he pulled out a pin “from this examinant’s owne sleeve, and pricked her wrist twice, and there came out a drop of bloud, which he took off with the top of his finger, and so departed”—leaving poor Rebecca’s heart all in a flutter. About four months afterwards as she was going to market to sell butter, a “man met with her, being in a ragged state, and having such great eyes that this examinant was very much afraid of him.” He presented her with three things like to “moules,” which she afterwards used to destroy her neighbours’ cattle, and now and again her neighbours themselves. In evidence against other suspects there was mention of a familiar called Elimanzer, who was fed with milk pottage, and of imps called Wynowe, Jeso, Panu, with many other remarkable particulars.

The foregoing was collected before trial as information upon oath; but this testimony of Sir Thomas Bowes, knight, was given from the bench during the trial of Anne Weste, whom it concerned. He reported that an honest man of Manningtree passing Anne Weste’s door at the very witching hour of night, in bright moonlight saw four things like black rabbits emerge. He caught one of them, and beat the head of it against his stick, “intending to beat out the braines of it,” failing in which benevolent design, he next tried to tear off its head, “and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wooll;” then he went to a spring to drown it, but at every step he fell down, yet he managed to creep to the water, under which he held the thing “a good space.” Thinking it was drowned he let go, whereupon “it sprang out of the water into the aire, and so vanished away.” There was but one end possible for people who froze the rustic soul with such pranks. Each and all were soon dangling from the gallows.

The case of the Devon witches tried at Exeter in August 1682 is much like the Essex business. The informations are stuffed with grotesque horrors, yet it is hard to believe that the accused—three poor women from Bideford, two of them widows—had been convicted but for their own confessions, which are full of copious and minute details of their dealings with Satan. Going to their death, they were worried by Mr. H——, a nonconformist preacher and (as is evident) a very pestilent fellow. “Did you pass through the keyhole of the door, or was the door open?” was one query. The witch asserted that like other people she entered by the door, though “the devil did lead me upstairs.” Mr. H—— went on, “How do you know it was the devil?” “I knew it by his eyes,” she returned. Again, “Did you never ride over an arm of the sea on a cow?”—an exploit which the poor woman sturdily disclaimed. Mr. H——, a little dissatisfied, one fancies, prayed at them a while, after which two of the women were turned off the ladder. Mr. Sheriff tried his hand at the survivor: he was curious as to the shape or colour of the devil, and was answered that he appeared “in black like a bullock.” He again pressed her as to whether she went in “through the keyhole or the door,” but she alleged the more commonplace and (for a witch) unorthodox mode of entry, “and so was executed.”

Between these two cases one occurred wherein the best legal intellect of the day was engaged—and with no better result. In March 1665, Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, were indicted at the Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds for bewitching certain people. Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, presided. “Still his name is of account.” To an earlier time he seemed a judge “whom for his integrity, learning, and law, hardly any age, either before or since, could parallel.” William Durant, an infant, was one victim; his mother had promised Amy Duny a penny to watch him, but she was strictly charged not to give him suck. To what end? queried the court reflecting on Amy’s age. The mother replied: firstly, Amy had the reputation of a witch, and secondly, it was a custom of old women thus to please the child, “and it did please the child, but it sucked nothing but wind, which did the child hurt.” The two women had a quarrel on the subject: Amy was enraged, and departed after some dark sayings, and the boy forthwith fell into “strange fits of swounding.” Dr. Jacob, of Yarmouth, an eminent witch-doctor, advised “to hang up the child’s blanket in the chimney-corner all day, and at night when she put the child to bed to put it into the said blanket, and if she found anything in it she should not be afraid, but throw it into the fire.” The blanket was duly hung up, and taken down, when a great toad fell out, which being thrown into the fire made (not unnaturally) “a great and horrible noise;” followed a crack and a flash, and—exit the toad! The court with solemn foolishness inquired if the substance of the toad was not seen to consume? and was stoutly answered “No.” Next day Amy was discovered sitting alone in her house in her smock without any fire. She was in “a most lamentable condition,” having her face all scorched with fire. This deponent had no doubt as to the witch’s guilt, “for that the said Amy hath been long reputed to be a witch and a person of very evil behaviour, whose kindred and relations have been many of them accused for witchcraft, and some of them have been condemned.”

Elizabeth Pacy was another bewitched child. By direction of the judge, Amy Duny was made to touch her, whereupon the child clawed the Old Beldam till the blood came—a portentous fact, for everybody knew that the bewitched would naturally scratch the tormentor’s face and thus obtain relief. The father of the child, Samuel Pacy (whose soberness and moderation are specially commended by the reporter), now told how Amy Duny thrice came to buy herrings, and, being as often refused, “went away grumbling, but what she said was not perfectly understood.” Immediately his child Deborah fell sick, whereupon Amy was set in the stocks. Here she confessed that, when any of her offspring were so afflicted, “she had been fain to open her child’s mouth with a tap to give it vitals,” which simple device the sapient Pacy practised upon his brats with some effect, but still continuing ill they vomited “crooked pins and one time a twopenny nail with a very broad head, which pins, amounting to forty or more, together with the twopenny nail, were produced in court,” so what room was there for doubt? The children, continually accusing Amy Duny and Rose Cullender as cause of their sickness, were packed off by their distracted father to his sister at Yarmouth, who now took up the wondrous tale. When the younger child was taking the air out of doors, “presently a little thing like a bee flew upon her face, and would have gone into her mouth.” She rushed indoors, and incontinent vomited up a twopenny nail with a broad head, whose presence she accounted for thus: “the bee brought this nail and forced it into her mouth”; from all which the guilt of the witches was ever more evident.

Even that age had its sceptics. Some people in court, chief among them Mr. Serjeant Keeling, whose position and learning made it impossible to disregard their opinion, “seemed much unsatisfied.” The learned serjeant pointed out that even if the children were bewitched, there was no real evidence to connect the prisoners with the fact. Then Dr. Browne, of Norwich, “a person of great knowledge” (no other, alas! than the Sir Thomas Browne of the Religio Medici), made a very learned if confusing dissertation on Witchcraft in general, with some curious details as to a late “great discovery of witches” in Denmark; which no whit advanced the matter. Then there was another experiment. Amy Duny was brought to one of the children whose eyes were blinded. The child was presently touched by another person, “which produced the same effect as the touch of the witch did in the court.” The sceptical Keeling and his set now roundly declared the whole business a sham, which “put the court and all persons into a stand. But at length Mr. Pacy did declare that possibly the maid might be deceived by a suspicion that the witch touched her when she did not.” This was the very point the sceptics were making, and was anything but an argument in reply, though it seems to have been accepted as such. And how to suppose, it was urged, that innocent children would tell such terrible lies? It was the golden age of the rod; never was there fitter occasion for its use. Once fancies a few strokes had produced remarkable confessions from the innocents! However, the court went on hearing evidence. The judge summed up with much seeming impartiality, much wooden wisdom, and the usual judicial platitudes, all which after more than two centuries you read with considerable irritation. The jury upon half an hour’s deliberation returned a verdict of guilty. Next morning the children were brought to the judge, “and Mr. Pacy did affirm that within less than half an hour after the witches were convicted they were all of them restored.” After this, what place was left for doubt? “In conclusion the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict, and thereupon gave judgment against the witches that they should be hanged.” Three days afterwards the poor unfortunates went to their death. “They were much urged to confess, but would not.”

Finally, you have this much less tragic business. In the first year of Queen Anne’s reign (1702), Richard Hathaway was tried at the Surrey Assizes before Lord Chief Justice Holt for falsely accusing Sarah Morduck of bewitching him. The offence being a misdemeanour, the prisoner had counsel, an advantage not then fully given to those charged with felony. The trial reads like one in our own day. The case for the Crown had been carefully put together. Possibly the authorities were striking at accusations of and prosecutions for Witchcraft. Sarah Morduck had been tried and acquitted at Guildford Assizes for bewitching Hathaway, whereupon this prosecution had been ordered. Dr. Martin, parish minister in Southwark, an able and enlightened divine, had saved Sarah from the mob, and so was led on to probe the matter. He found Hathaway apparently blind and dumb, but giving his assent by a sign to the suggestion that he should scratch Morduck, and so (according to the superstition already noted) obtain relief. Dr. Martin brought Sarah and a woman of the same height called Johnson to the room where the impostor lay, seemingly, at death’s door. Morduck announced her willingness to be scratched, and then Johnson’s hand was put into his. Hathaway was suspicious, and felt the arm very carefully, whereat the parson “spoke to him somewhat eagerly: If you will not scratch I will begone.” Whereupon he clawed so lustily that Johnson near fainted. She was forthwith hustled out of the room and Morduck pushed forward; but the rogue, fearing a trap, lay quiet till Dr. Martin encouraged him by simulated admiration. Then he opened wide his eyes, “caught hold of the apron of Sarah Morduck, and looked her in the face,” thus implying that his supposed scratching of her had restored his eyesight. Being informed of his blunder he “seemed much cast down,” but his native impudence soon asserting itself, he gave himself out for worse than ever, whilst Sarah Morduck, anxious to be clear at any cost, declared that not she but Johnson was the witch. The popular voice roundly abused Dr. Martin for a stubborn sceptic. Charges of bribery against him, as well as against the judge and jury who had acquitted Morduck, were freely bandied about. Dr. Martin had got Bateman a friend of his to see Hathaway, one of whose symptoms was the vomiting of pins. His evidence was that the rogue scattered the pins about the room by sleight of hand; Bateman had taken several parcels of them, almost by force, out of his pocket. Kensy, a surgeon, further told how Hathaway, being committed to his care, at first would neither eat nor drink. Kensy being afraid that he would starve himself to death sooner than have his cheat discovered, arranged a pretended quarrel with his maid Baker, who supplied the patient with food as if against his orders. Indeed, she plied him so well with meat and drink that, so she told the court, “he was very merry and danced about, and took the tongs and played upon them, but after that he was mightily sick and vomited sadly”—but there were no pins and needles! She further told how four gentlemen, privily stored away in the buttery and coal-hole, witnessed Hathaway’s gastronomic feats. Serjeant Jenner for the defence called several witnesses, who testified to the prisoner’s abstinence from food for quite miraculous periods. The force of this evidence was much shaken by the pertinent cross-examination of the judge, who asked the jury in his summing up, “Whether you have any evidence to induce you to believe it to be in the power of all the witches in the world, or all the Devils in Hell, to fast beyond the usual time that nature will allow: they cannot invert the order of nature.” The jury, “without going from the bar, brought him in Guilty.” He was sentenced to a fine, a sound flogging, the pillory, and imprisonment with hard labour. The last conviction for Witchcraft in England was that of Jane Wenham, at Hertford, in 1712. She was respited by the judge and afterwards pardoned. The case is not here reported.

These trials throw a curious light on the ideas of the time; unfortunately they exhibit human nature in some of its worst aspects. The victims were women, old, poor, helpless, and the persecution to which they were subjected was due partly to superstition, partly to that delight in cruelty so strong in the natural man. The “confessions” of the accused are easily accounted for. The popular beliefs so impressed their imaginations that they believed in their own malevolent power, also the terror they inspired lacked not charm, it procured them consideration, some money, even some protection. Not seldom their “confessions” were merely terrified assents to statements made about them by witch-finders, clergymen, and justices. And the judges? Sometimes, alas! they callously administered a law in which they had no belief. Is there not still something inexplicable? Well, such things as mesmerism, thought-reading, and so forth exhibit remarkable phenomena. A former age ascribed all to Satan: we believe them natural though we cannot as yet solve all their riddles. I must add that the ancient popular horror of witches is partly explained by the hideous and grotesque details given at the trials, but those obscenities I dare not reproduce.